The future of technology in the entertainment industry

Intro

duction

In this generation, technology has changed the nature of entertainment for the better, and in the past few decades, it has changed the nature of entertainment forever. Around the world, the entertainment industry has experienced an unprecedented shift in how people produce and consume stories. From digital streaming to the invention of virtual reality, the infusion of technology not only brought more variety and accessibility to entertainment but fundamentally reshaped the process of creation, distribution, and consumption.
Streaming now defines how consumers experience entertainment, providing at-will access to a seemingly limitless digital vault of movies, TV shows, music, and more. It is challenging the very framework of traditional media formats and democratizing access to global audiences for creators and consumers alike.
And finally, what technological trends and innovations on the entertainment tech horizon should we keep our eye on? The pace of technological evolution accelerates, and with it, the promise of innovation blurs the line between physical and digital entertainment. Recent advancements from artificial intelligence and virtual reality to blockchain and 5G connectivity show great promise in how entertainment can be produced, distributed, and experienced. Industries stakeholders must watch the next wave of innovation to ensure they are empowered to leverage these technologies and build the digital future of their entertainment experience.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are already changing the entertainment industry in very fundamental ways:

• Gaming - Although we could experience games through 2D video screens before VR headsets became a thing, it’s hard to overstate what VR headsets do for gaming: they allow you to jump into the virtual world itself, potentially in a greater way than ever before by interacting with virtual objects and characters. we have never seen VR shine more than in some aspects of the games Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx.
• Movies and entertainment - You don’t just watch a 360-degree movie or concert; you’re meant to experience the feeling of presence and immersion. That is why Oculus and HTC Vive are working with moviemakers to allow the viewer to be placed right in the middle of the action via VR.
• Live events - Using AR, people can interact with digital content that is superimposed on real-world objects and scenes as they view them through a mobile device or AR glasses. For example, AR apps might annotate real-time information for attendees about a sports game or a music performance.

Future potential: How VR/AR could revolutionize gaming, movies, and live events

The future potential of VR and AR in entertainment is vast and transformative:

• Gaming - Further advances in haptic feedback, motion-tracking, AI-driven interactions, and in-game characters will likely enrich VR, while AR will allow us to bring in-game play into the real world, blurring physical and digital experiences.
• Movies and entertainment - Imagine being able to walk inside a narrative and experience it first hand, looking around the room and at things happening behind you that wouldn’t be visible to someone in the scene you’re experiencing. Or imagine being able to explore inside scenes from a movie you’ve just seen, or even a place you’ve just been, and walk through it freely in either direction; or imagine that you’re able to access comprehensive information about any person, artifact, building or location, simply by looking at it through your glasses.
• Live events - AR can potentially change how we experience live events. Imagine an AR-powered pair of glasses at a sports event, allowing you to view live statistics as they occur and virtual replays of key plays. Or, at a concert, you can communicate with a virtual avatar of one of the performers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in content creation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming content creation across various sectors of the entertainment industry:

• Filmmaking - AI reads scripts, predicts box office performance, and can even create storyboards. In the video-editing space, where hours of work can be made redundant by the wrong composition or lighting, AI can help with nuanced decision-making to ensure the desired creative effect.
• Music production - AI tools can already ‘compose’ new tracks, generate lyrics, or even channel famous musicians to launch new album tracks. Services such as Amper Music and AIVA use machine learning to craft new compositions based on desired moods or genres.
• Gaming - To make playing video games more immersive and enjoyable, AI can generate virtual ‘non-player characters’ (NPCs) that respond in intelligent ways to players’ actions, can help modify and improve game environments, and can even adjust the gameplay to make it suitable for individual players according to how they behave. In The Last of Us Part II (2020), a PlayStation exclusive, AI enables ‘dynamic storytelling’ and ‘adaptive gameplay’.

Predictions: AI's role in personalized content and interactive experiences

The future potential of AI in entertainment includes:

• Personalized content - Algorithms can crunch user data to help streaming services curate customized suggestions of what to watch by producing a personal recommendation list of movies, shows, or games.
• Interactive experiences - Some of the interactions might take place in real-time, like AI-driven chatbots or virtual assistants engaging with users during live events or gaming sessions, personalized guidance, storytelling, or troubleshooting.

Ethical considerations and challenges

While AI offers significant benefits, its integration into content creation raises ethical concerns:

• Job displacement - Humans are capable of creative feats such as filmmaking or music composition, but AI could quickly take over these tasks by automating them.
• Bias and representation - AI models trained on biased training data could worsen stereotypes or exclude certain groups from content creation. Correcting bias in AI models for more inclusive storytelling is equally as important as scaling it.
• Privacy and data security - AI’s ability inherently leads to the possibility of data breaches and data protection issues. Privacy concerns people’s personal information, and security relates to the safe use of AI-based services.

Streaming platforms and on-demand services

Streaming platforms have reshaped the landscape of media consumption:

• Shift from traditional media - The dominance of legacy media has been put into question as subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and the like supplant the old broadcast and cable TV business models. Consumers favor pulling a video when they want to watch it from a library of titles rather than receiving content at the schedule of a program provider.
• Global reach - Streaming networks have gone global, with localized content that now reaches audiences in places where other media isn’t as accessible. This global reach has democratized entertainment access, with consumers given a greater choice in what they watch.

Innovations in content delivery and consumption

Streaming platforms continue to innovate in how content is delivered and consumed:

• Original content - Streaming services pump out original movies, television series, documentaries, and interactive content. Examples include Stranger Things on Netflix and The Mandalorian on Disney+, which have acquired a global following and subscriber base.
• Personalized recommendations - AI algorithms analyze usage data to recommend personalized content, ensuring higher satisfaction for viewers and greater engagement with these recommendations. User preferences are used to recommend new releases, genres, or creators that will likely appeal to them.
• Multi-device accessibility - Streaming services offer multi-device accessibility, which means we can view the content not just on smartphones or tablet PCs but also on smart TVs or gaming consoles. This is handy as viewing habits and lifestyles are often different.

The Role of Big Data and Analytics

Big data and analytics have revolutionized how entertainment companies understand their audiences:

• Audience segmentation - Entertainers sift through mountains of data, ranging from viewing habits to demographic information to what’s being said on social media outlets, to create demographic segments with distinct content offerings and marketing tactics.
• Content development - Data can be used to inform content decisions by spotting trends, predicting audience interest, and gauging the potential appeal of new releases. Studios and streaming services can deploy predictive analytics to greenlight projects that they feel will connect with their target demographic.
• Performance evaluation - Data analytics collect higher–order metrics such as audience engagement (e.g., number of viewers), viewer retention (e.g., the percentage of viewers watching for a certain amount of time at a minimum level of engagement), and social media buzz. These can be assessed in real-time and inform content producers of spots and segments that will expand audience reach and enhance retention.

Future trends and predictions

Experts foresee several emerging technologies shaping the future of entertainment:

• Extended Reality (XR) - Extended Reality (XR), which generally refers to immersive technologies such as VR, AR, and mixed reality (MR), will destroy boundaries between screen and reality; entertainment will be all about engaging in simulated environments, whether through gaming, movies, live events, or virtual tourism.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements - Artificial Intelligence will remain at the forefront of information generation, personalization, and prediction tools. The ‘deep fake’ takes an early lead in a category where AI-propelled tools might increasingly write our scripts, edit our films, replicate our actors, and tell our stories on the fly.
• 5G and edge computing - Deployment of 5G and edge computing networks will give rise to diminished latency and faster streaming, facilitating the ability to deliver HD content without limits in terms of time or geographical region, as well as multi-player gaming and AR/VR applications as they are made available.

Speculations on how entertainment consumption will change in the next decade

The future of entertainment consumption is likely to evolve in several key ways:

• Shift towards interactive and immersive experiences - Consumers will become increasingly receptive to interactive content and immersive experiences that erase the boundaries between reality and virtual environments. They will demand more XR technologies as well as new storytelling formats.
• Rise of hybrid content models - Inevitably, as media and entertainment assets become increasingly digitised, we will see the rise of new content models combining traditional ways of viewing/playing media with the introduction of game mechanics. The gamified TV shows we are seeing in the US and Europe, together with other forms of interactive film, will increase. These kinds of content will be perfect for audiences seeking greater personalization and participation.
• Continued growth of streaming and on-demand services - The ongoing proliferation of streaming and ‘on-demand’ offerings – ‘The ability to watch what I want, when I want, where I want’ will increasingly become the norm. Subscribe to a range of original and licensed content, easily available on any device connected to the internet at any point in time. At the same time, streaming services will increasingly expand into new geographic markets and localize their offerings to appeal to local tastes.

Con

clusion

The future of tech-driven entertainment can only be characterized by innovation, interactivity, and unparalleled possibilities. What might fuel the levels, pace, and direction of continued advancement in tech-driven entertainment? Emerging technologies enabling extended reality (XR), artificial intelligence (AI), and programmable 5G will likely drive this paradigm shift.
New types of voxel-based, high-fidelity XR will embed audiences into immersive gaming environments that include and exceed the effects or narrative peers found in movies. Fully automated AI-driven content production tools will transform directly between the written and spoken word. The output will be customized for each user and shaped by deep learning (machine) attempts at anticipating each user’s preferences. Improvements in 5G and edge computing will ensure real-time streaming, gaming, and mobile connectivity on a global scale.