Amagi AIRTIME Report

Our previous Airtime Report asked M&E execs where AI could unlock the most value across media operations — and metadata generation and enrichment ranked highest. This edition examines that finding more closely. Based on a pulse survey of 28 senior media practitioners and analysis by FASTMaster – Gavin Bridge, we map what broken metadata workflows are actually costing the industry, where AI adoption has already shifted, and which FAST markets and genres are driving growth into H2 2026.

“The picture that emerges is of an industry that has stopped treating metadata as a cost to minimize and started seeing the money it leaves on the table. 86% say poor metadata is actively costing them — lost ad revenue, weaker discovery, content buried down the rail — and not one respondent disagreed.” — Gavin Bridge, Chief Analyst, FASTMaster

Here are the top questions answered:

• How the "format tax," not metadata creation itself, is the real operational burden: reformatting for each platform's bespoke specs is the single most-agreed pain point in the entire survey
  
• Where AI adoption stands: a majority of practitioners already trust AI-generated metadata with spot-check oversight only, and two-thirds expect minimal human involvement within three years
• Why metadata is becoming the fuel recommendation engines and AI agents run on — and why bad metadata won't just look wrong in a grid, it will be invisible to the systems doing the recommending

Here’s a sneak peek into global FAST market trends:

• Global FAST consumption and monetization showed a consistent double-digit growth, with HOV up 55% and ad impressions up 53% year over year.
• Entertainment and News remain the leading global genres for both HOV and ad impressions.
• Kids is among the fastest-growing FAST genres, with HOV up 191% and ad impressions up 118% year over year. New channel launches now contribute 56% of the genre's total viewing hours.