Across the media industry, the conversation around AI has shifted rapidly from curiosity to urgency. Executives are no longer asking whether AI will matter, but how quickly it will reshape everything from production pipelines to audience engagement. With new possibilities emerging rapidly, the excitement is accompanied by significant concerns, as organisations grapple with the challenge of making the most of this transformative technology when the foundations they rely upon were designed for
a different era.
“The surge in AI use cases is a double-edged sword for media organisations,” says Jimmy Parker-Barratt, worldwide media and entertainment strategy director at Microsoft. “On one hand, it unlocks extraordinary creative and operational potential. On the other, it exposes the limitations of legacy data architectures that were never designed to support the scale, speed, complexity and security considerations of modern AI workloads.”
The key issue, according to Parker-Barratt, is that many media companies are still operating in fragmented environments, with separate data silos in production, distribution and monetisation workflows. This has a serious impact, both on operations and the effective training of AI models.
“AI thrives on clean, unified and well-governed data,” says Parker-Barratt. “Without that foundation, organisations risk building brittle solutions that don’t scale or generalise well. At Microsoft, we often say: ‘AI is only as good as the data it learns from.’ That’s especially true in media, where the richness of content and metadata is both a blessing and a challenge.”
That recognition shifts the focus from the promise of AI to the groundwork required to make it truly effective. Real progress depends on media companies reassessing the value of data itself, says Parker-Barratt.
“Media organisations need to treat data as a strategic asset, not just a byproduct of operations,” he says. “That means investing in unified data platforms that can ingest, transform and activate data across the entire media supply chain.”
From there, the challenge becomes figuring out how to organise that data so it serves both the business and the creative talent driving it.
“The solution is to adopt federated data architectures that balance central governance with local autonomy,” says Parker-Barratt. “This allows creative teams to move fast while ensuring compliance and consistency. Microsoft Fabric is a great example as it enables organisations to build reusable data products, enforce governance and accelerate innovation across teams.”
Technology, however, is only part of the picture. The way people approach and handle data day to day matters just as much, says Parker-Barratt.
“They need to embed data stewardship into their culture,” he says. “AI doesn’t just need data; it needs trusted data. That means clear roles, robust metadata and responsible data practices. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the foundation of successful AI implementation and ultimately adoption as well.”
Well-managed data can then be the launchpad for transformation, enabling media organisations to personalise content at scale, optimise campaign performance and unlock new monetisation models.
“Take content discoverability,” says Parker-Barratt. “By creating an active archive built on structured metadata and AI-powered tagging, organisations can surface the right content to the right audience at the right time. Whether that’s through search, recommendation engines, or dynamic advert targeting. Alternatively, consider production automation. AI tools like Microsoft Azure OpenAI and Cognitive Services can generate summaries, transcriptions and synthetic voice dubbing.”
Microsoft is helping media companies both to transform their data strategies and make the most of the power of AI.
“Microsoft offers a comprehensive stack to help media organisations manage and activate their data, from ingestion to insight,” says Parker-Barrett. “Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, and Azure AI Studio provide the backbone for data movement, transformation and model training. We’re also investing heavily in Copilot Studio and adapted AI models tailored to industry-specific needs. These tools allow customers to build intelligent agents that understand their domain, speak their language and drive real outcomes.”
The Microsoft partner ecosystem is also using Microsoft tools to bring powerful new solutions to the media industry to help unlock the full potential of AI.
“Coactive AI is doing phenomenal work in multimodal content intelligence,” says Parker-Barrett. “Its platform enables media companies to search, organise and analyse visual content at scale unlocking new dimensions of analytics and personalisation when integrated with Microsoft Fabric.
“Yobi.ai is another partner enabling new capabilities, this time in the marketing and advertising space. Its consented user data graph is allowing media companies to generate increased return on advertising investment and enabling better personalisation and targeting across a number of key performance indicators. It really showcases the power of data when it’s used in this context.”
The media industry stands at a crossroads. Those who invest in unified platforms, embrace federated architectures and embed stewardship into their culture will be able to harness AI to personalise experiences, streamline operations and unlock entirely new business models. Those who don’t risk falling behind in an environment where speed and scale are everything.
“The shift to AI demands a rethink – not just of tools, but also of the underlying data strategy,” says Parker-Barratt. “The success of media organisations will depend on data being clean and accessible, enabling them to unlock the extraordinary potential of AI.”
Discover more insights from Microsoft in the Autumn 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.