The future of TV was on display at CES, and data and artificial intelligence were at the center of it.

Media buyers, executives, and leaders in the tech industry flooded the Las Vegas Convention Center at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, seeing the latest tech and trends affecting the TV ad industry.

To learn about where the industry is going next, ADWEEK spoke to several media buyers, executives, and experts in attendance, learning about the latest trends and industry themes to watch out for in 2025 and beyond.

Here are three of the themes that were prevalent at CES this year that could impact the future of TV:

AI and data continue to blur the lines between legacy publishers and tech

AI was the buzzword of CES, with the tech leading to innovation in everything from frequency capping to audience targeting. However, as AI and data become even bigger cornerstones of company offerings, the lines between media companies and tech companies continue to blur.

Among the highlights, industry insiders pointed to legacy media companies bolstering their tech. For instance, during Disney’s fifth-annual Global Tech & Data Showcase, the company unveiled a slate of new features with AI capabilities, including Select AI Engine, a tool that allows brands to build custom lookalike audiences and deliver sequential messaging—all while expanding reach without impacting frequency caps.

Not to be outdone, NBCUniversal announced a slate of new advertising features and AI capabilities, including the expansion of its Ad Creative Engine, which uses generative AI, machine learning, and statistical models to understand the historical performance of ad creative within specific content, predicting how creative will perform for various KPIs such as brand awareness and message breakthrough.

Meanwhile, free, ad-supported, and tech-focused streamers are continuing to gain share in a fragmented marketplace as they creep closer to acting like legacy publishers. For its part, Tubi said it had 97 million monthly active users and more than 10 billion streaming hours in 2024, with 77% of its viewers not having cable, according to a November MRI Cord Evolution Study.

Streaming services attempt to improve the user experience

Beyond data, media companies are also looking for improved user experiences as a way to mitigate fragmentation, according to experts. For example, one buyer pointed to DirecTV, which announced last year during Advertising Week that it was launching MyFree DirecTV, a dedicated free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platform.

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