What’s ahead for streaming in 2026? Here’s what experts are saying

2025 went out with a bang as some of the biggest names in the game battled it out to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

While we’re still waiting to find out how the cookie crumbles, consolidation is just one major trend that’s set to affect the streaming world this year. Marketing Brew chatted with Jennifer Kohl, chief media officer at VML; Andrew Frank, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner; and Tara DeVeaux, CEO of BCG Worldwide and Burrell Communications Group, to get their takes on what 2026 might hold for the streaming industry.

Keep on consolidating

DeVeaux: There’s a lot of panic happening now with the consolidation of platforms. What we might be seeing is a bit of a correction. Everyone started chasing Netflix the last almost 20 years, since Netflix has been a streamer and moved from demolishing Blockbuster to going after major studios. Everyone was chasing them. Everyone was developing and overinvesting, I would say, in content. Where we are now is a bit of a correction.

Frank: We’re seeing the dawn of the reconciliation of Hollywood with Silicon Valley, is the way I like to put it. In addition to Netflix maybe buying Warner Brothers…people [may] remember that Amazon bought MGM, which was another big Hollywood-Valley deal. I think that you’re going to see a lot of growth in the focus on streaming content for a lot of the big platform companies.

Strengthened data chops

Kohl: You almost can’t be in marketing without starting the answer with something AI-oriented, so AI-driven personalization…There’s all of this data collection that’s happening all the time, and the content providers are looking for your input so that they can continue to suggest more and more accurate future viewing programs…I think there’s also this AI-informed targeting as well that’s happening, obviously, on all the ad-supported platforms.

Frank: There will be a lot more data collaboration initiatives between advertisers, streaming companies, and maybe retailers as well to try to solve the accountability problem in streaming media in particular and in CTV and OTT. I think you’re going to see data become a more important part of the advertising ecosystem.

Creators incoming

DeVeaux: What we’re going to see is competition coming from different places. There’s only 24 hours in a day. I know that there’s been back and forth between the difference between premium streaming versus a TikTok or a YouTube. But ultimately, we only have 24 hours in a day. Everyone has shared eyeballs. I do think that we’re going to start to see a lot stiffer competition coming from the YouTubes and the TikToks of the world.

Frank: I think you’re going to see some integration between two separate markets—the creator economy market, where YouTube has really been the trendsetter there, and the original content market, where Netflix and the streaming companies have been the trendsetters. I think you’re going to see that start to come together, where a lot more of the companies that have been doing original content will integrate creator content both for economic reasons and because it’s popular. You’ll start to see blending of studio content with user-generated material, especially on ad-supported FAST channels and things like that.

Kohl: We’ve seen a lot of evolution of influencers or creators. Then there’s this gray area where people are just more or less influencers, but then they cross over to [become] a content creator that suddenly is on-platform. YouTube is probably one of the easiest places for us to look, but there’s plenty of [creators on other platforms] that are getting their own TV shows.