It’s always a privilege to engage with the DPP community. They do a fantastic job of bringing industry leaders together in a truly productive learning environment (over 1000 attendees this year in a fantastic new venue), and the quality of the insights and information shared is consistently high. As I look back through my rough notes from the recent discussions, it’s clear that common themes are emerging over and over again, signaling where the market is moving.

The clearest theme is the shift toward Industrializing and Leveraging AI. The conversation is moving beyond simple exploration to focusing on sophisticated "agentic AI" systems that can understand goals, use tools, and make decisions to drive workflows. We heard repeatedly that AI is becoming the operating layer of the media workflow, acting as the conductor for repetitive tasks. While there's excitement, there’s also the sober warning that adding AI to chaos only creates more chaos, reinforcing the need for solid infrastructure first.

This leads directly to the second main theme: Simplification, Efficiency, and Managing Complexity. Simplification is a non-negotiable goal for the coming years, driven by the constant push for more efficiency and lower total cost of ownership. Leaders are tackling the complexity created by custom-built systems and are now demanding candour from vendors to avoid over-customizing off-the-shelf applications. The ultimate ambition for some is to completely remove human intervention from the supply chain.

Finally, there is a clear focus on the Financial and Organizational Challenges of Transformation. With a significant portion of spending expected to shift to operational expenditure (opex), leaders are battling planning challenges and, crucially, ROI uncertainty for new AI and tech investments. These conversations acknowledge that our existing processes were designed for a time we are leaving behind, in some cases requiring a deep organizational redesign.

I'm excited to share that Fabric is perfectly positioned to address these key industry trends. Since my arrival in September, I've been impressed to find that the groundwork for a media technology operating system is already established in both our Xytech and Origin families of product. This strong foundation enables us to effectively meet the media industry's critical data and software requirements as it enters a crucial phase of automation and simplification.