Entertainment companies are confronting three connected pressures: rapidly advancing generative AI, households facing higher costs, and a streaming market that needs to do more than collect a monthly video-subscription fee. The emerging answer is less about simply accumulating viewers and more about building durable relationships with fans.

That distinction matters. A viewer may arrive for one series, one film, or one live event and leave when it ends. A fan is someone a company hopes will keep returning across multiple touchpoints: new releases, sports, communities, games, events, experiences and other extensions of a familiar brand or intellectual property. In that framework, streaming is not merely a distribution destination. It can become the digital center through which a company connects audiences to the rest of its business.

For games and the broader culture around them, the principle is recognizable. A major release is increasingly treated not as an isolated product but as a moment that can support discussion, previews, live programming, social interaction and adjacent entertainment. Netflix’s use of a Grand Theft Auto VI preview is one cited example of cross-leveraging audiences. It does not, by itself, define a broader strategy for games, but it illustrates how companies want recognizable properties to move people between formats and platforms.

From consumers to connected communities

Javi Borges, EY’s global Americas media and entertainment sector leader, describes a shift away from one-off, event-driven consumption toward connected community experiences. His core argument is straightforward: companies want consumers to become loyal supporters who engage repeatedly with a product or experience.

“Stickiness” is the business shorthand at the center of that idea. It refers to a service, franchise or product’s ability to encourage recurring participation and make departure less likely. In entertainment, stickiness is not necessarily about locking people into one screen. It can come from the shared rituals and ongoing interest around a sports league, a franchise, a character universe, a game series, a park experience, or a live event.

Sports rights are especially relevant because fandom can be recurrent by design. Seasons create regular appointments; live competition invites real-time conversation; and supporters may follow teams across broadcasts, clips, merchandise and in-person experiences. The broader lesson for studios, streamers and game-adjacent media is that a valuable audience is not defined only by its size. The consistency and depth of its relationship with a property also matter.

That does not mean every piece of entertainment needs a sprawling “universe,” nor does it guarantee that communities can be manufactured through corporate planning. It means companies see greater value in intellectual property that can sustain attention after a single release window. The harder task is giving people a genuine reason to return rather than merely adding another promotional destination.

AI’s promise depends on human oversight

Generative AI is another major force reshaping that calculation. The term generally refers to systems that can produce new material, including text, images, audio or other outputs, in response to prompts and data. For film and television, its potential is tied to production workflows and to the possibility of lowering costs. Borges argues that AI can make people more productive and could “democratize” filmmaking costs.

Related coverage includes Entertainment’s Next Battle Is for Fans, Not Just Subscribers.

Democratization in this context means that some tasks may become more accessible or less expensive for smaller creators and teams. That is a potential, not an assurance of equal opportunity or quality. Cheaper tools do not eliminate the importance of creative judgment, budgets, rights management or distribution. They may, however, change which kinds of work can be attempted and how much human time is spent on particular stages of a process.

The important qualification is governance. Governance means the policies, approvals, accountability and safeguards used to control how a technology is deployed. Borges argues that the sector needs processes that keep human creatives in charge of AI-assisted work. That is a practical issue, not just a philosophical one: when output can be generated at great speed, companies need clear responsibility for reviewing it, deciding how it is used and preserving meaningful human creative oversight.

Speed is also why AI is producing market anxiety. Borges characterizes the pace of breakthroughs and change as unusually fast. Investors have closely tied major technology-company valuations to enthusiasm for AI, leaving the sector exposed if demand or confidence weakens. Nvidia provides the clearest bellwether in the supplied market snapshot: its shares were up 15% year to date through Sept. 16, while its fortunes remain closely linked to continued AI demand.

That connection extends beyond one chipmaker. If businesses cut back on AI spending, it could affect the expectations embedded across media and technology stocks. Conversely, enthusiasm alone is not a complete business model for entertainment companies. The relevant question is whether AI tools improve real creative or operational outcomes while remaining subject to sound governance and human control.

The bigger near-term risk may be household budgets

AI is a long-running strategic question, but the immediate health of the consumer may be more consequential for media businesses. Entertainment is fundamentally consumer-centric: subscriptions, tickets, advertising-supported viewing, parks, cruises and live experiences all depend, in different ways, on people having money and confidence to spend.

Elevated fuel costs, core inflation above the Federal Reserve target and a declining personal-savings buffer have been identified as warning signs. Layoffs across technology, banking and entertainment add another source of pressure. The effects are not identical across all categories. A household can reassess subscriptions differently from a holiday trip, a cinema ticket or a live sports package. But a more cautious consumer can make every strategy based on engagement and upselling more difficult.

That is especially relevant when a streaming platform is designed as a funnel into higher-value activities. A funnel is a business term for the path that moves someone from initial awareness or use toward a later action, such as buying a ticket, booking a trip or participating in an experience. It is an appealing model because a company can use a familiar digital service to keep its brands visible and guide interested users toward other offerings.

But the model has a clear dependency: people must be able and willing to spend beyond the subscription itself. In other words, the same economic conditions that make a broad entertainment ecosystem desirable can limit how much consumers can do within it.

Disney+ and Peacock seek a larger role

Disney and NBCUniversal have both laid out ambitions for Disney+ and Peacock to become more than video-subscription products. The goal is to connect those platforms with theme parks and other experiences, turning them into hubs for companywide activity rather than standalone destinations.

Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro has called the approach an “expanded ecosystem.” Disney plans to roll out elements of it to Disney+’s 131 million subscribers worldwide by next spring. D’Amaro’s framing is notable because it positions Disney+ as the digital centerpiece of the company’s relationships with fans, rather than simply another competitor in a catalog-and-subscription race.

For audiences, this could mean streaming services increasingly function as gateways to a company’s other brands and offerings. For companies, the potential prize is a more complete picture of audience interests and more opportunities to connect a hit film, show or franchise with an experience elsewhere in the business. The risk is that audiences may see these layers as useful extensions—or as an overbuilt sales path. The supplied information establishes the strategic ambition, but not how consumers will respond.

Peacock is pursuing a related vision through NBCUniversal’s ecosystem. Comcast, its parent company, is also on track to separate its cable and broadband assets from NBCUniversal by mid-2027. After more than 15 years together, that change will place increased investor attention on the studio, NBC and Peacock. A streaming platform’s role as a connector to a wider slate of brands and experiences could therefore become more important, while the company is simultaneously expected to demonstrate its own performance.

Five companies signal different pressures

The year-to-date stock figures through Sept. 16 provide a compact picture of the competing questions facing the sector. They are not a verdict on the companies’ long-term prospects, but they show how varied the pressures are.

  • Netflix: down 19%. The company faces investor questions about long-term growth following an earlier aborted M&A effort involving Warner Bros. Discovery. It is looking to subscriber growth outside the United States, along with more sports and live events, to help drive advertising sales.
  • Disney: down 6%. Its parks, cruises and experiences operations rely on resilient consumer spending, while its Disney+ strategy seeks to strengthen cross-platform connections with fans.
  • Canal+: down 5%. France’s largest pay-TV company is investing heavily in original French film production in exchange for favorable domestic exhibition rules in theaters and streaming. Its performance is presented as a gauge of Europe’s increasing confidence in the global media market.
  • Comcast: down 15%. The planned separation of its cable and broadband businesses from NBCUniversal will create a new level of scrutiny for the entertainment assets, including Peacock.
  • Nvidia: up 15%. Its result reflects the centrality of AI demand to the current technology market, as well as the potential downside should enthusiasm or spending cool.

Why this matters beyond quarterly results

All five cases point to the same broad transition. The older pay-TV distribution systems were more lucrative than the systems now taking shape, while streaming alone has not settled every profitability question. Companies are therefore trying to extract more lasting value from brands, communities and digital relationships.

For games, film, television and live entertainment alike, the meaningful test will be whether that value is built through experiences people actually choose to revisit. AI may improve how work gets made. Streaming may become a more effective front door for parks, events and franchises. Sports and major game releases may bring unusually committed communities into the mix. None of those pieces cancels out affordability, trust or the need for material worth caring about.

The next phase of entertainment is consequently not just a race for subscriber totals or technological novelty. It is a contest to earn ongoing fan attention while navigating economic strain and ensuring that faster creative tools remain governed by people.

For another look at how AI-focused technology is being framed around consumer devices and privacy, see our coverage of Snap’s standalone, privacy-focused AI layer for AR glasses.