A Smart Supply Chain: the escape from the algorithmic streaming maze

If, like me, you have ever found yourself numbly scrolling through a platform’s recommendations, each title oddly familiar, you are not alone. What was once a promise of endless discovery now feels like a maze of recycled formats leaving audiences dazed.

As IBC kicks off in Amsterdam, where the tech behind our industry is on full display, this is a timely moment to share some thoughts about how we use AI: not just for efficiency, but for creativity and connection.

When AI is applied to optimise consumption, it usually doesn’t help creation of great content. Let alone improve unit economics. The result is a sea of “safe bets”, where audience data replaces creative risk and workflows remain fragmented, linear, and inflexible. The Smart Supply Chain, let’s give it a name, can make the difference: an approach that doesn’t just chase views but reshapes the entire content pipeline to drive creative freedom, financial discipline, and most importantly audience connection.

The creative output has flatlined

Netflix, as documented in the Guardian recently, pioneered predictive personalisation. An amazing effort that, as the article put it, resulted in “bland, easy-to-follow” becoming the default. When algorithms prioritise view-through rate over originality, storytelling loses its ability to engage, inspire and discovery becomes a maze in which viewers get lost.

What a Smart Supply Chain really delivers

A Smart Supply Chain is not just about efficiency gains although those are critical in an environment where margins are continuously under pressure. It is about re-architecting the workflow from asset ingest to audience impact:

• Meaningful metadata should flow both upstream and downstream: shaping not just discovery but also creation and versioning, and critically, reducing the need to rely on generative AI in the first place.

• Dynamic localisation: from voice variants to cultural context adaptation.

• Platform-fit deployment: rather than retrofitting everything for everyone.

• Real-world revenue tracking: performance-based models instead of upfront guesswork.

• And crucially: audiences rediscovering content that surprises and delights.

 Viewed through this prism it becomes about strategic precision at scale.

Integration is no longer optional

To realise this potential, tech companies, aggregators, and platforms must collaborate and integrate more seamlessly than ever before. Proprietary silos and closed ecosystems serve no one. Fragmentation delays delivery, stifles creativity, and leaves value unrealised on both ends of the chain. 

Paraphrasing my conversations with Maarten Verwaest: “What the industry doesn’t need is shared infrastructure. What we do need is decentralised processing that can withstand macroeconomic shocks, combined with a shared understanding and a robust orchestration layer that ensures data flows efficiently across the value chain."

Case in Point: Localisation

Localisation used to be an afterthought. Today, it is a strategic driver. AI orchestration enables pre-mapping content relevance across regions, auto-generating subtitles (and soon, voice tracks) and perhaps flag scenes needing cultural context. No, not censorship, but nuance. It is one of those interventions that simultaneously improves user experience and economic return. Content investment is rising while returns per title are falling. AI orchestration changes that.

It enables us to:

• Reduce manual overhead via automation

• Increase output per euro or dollar invested

• Align content type and format with platform-fit monetisation windows

• Avoid the high-cost trap of low-value inventory 

Every step of the workflow becomes leaner, smarter and more aligned with audience value and business impact.

AI must liberate, not imitate

The best orchestration is invisible to the viewer. They experience discovery that surprises, not numbs. The future of streaming is precision, fluidity, and relevance. 

Used correctly, AI empowers creators, injects dynamism into the supply chain, and puts the viewer centre stage. That is not an algorithmic trick, rather the result of intentional, orchestrated collaboration across the value chain.