What Senior Executives in the Streaming Industry Are Talking About

Streaming has never been more competitive. The platforms pulling ahead are not doing it on content alone. They are making smarter decisions about community, creators, and the technology that connects them.

The Communities and Creator Economy Playbook 2026 is the second edition of an independent study by Trender Research, sponsored by Robosoft Technologies. Senior OTT and streaming executives, including leaders from Warner Bros. Discovery, AMC Networks, Plex, Vevo, and NBCUniversal, shared what has proven durable, what has changed, and what the industry has quietly moved on from. Two years on, we have returned to the same questions with new interviews, new participants, and two years of real decisions behind them.

What's inside:

• The creator economy strategy cutting subscriber acquisition costs from up to $200 to as little as $0.08, and what it actually takes to do it well.
• Four 2024 recommendations that real-world implementation has now confirmed
• Two strategies the industry invested in two years ago, and has since abandoned 
• How AI has changed the cost calculus of moderating community at scale
• Perspectives from Robosoft leaders working with Warner Bros. Discovery and other key OTT accounts on what these strategies look like in practice.

About Robosoft:

Robosoft Technologies has spent 30+ years engineering streaming platforms for Warner Bros. Discovery, Mediacorp, Pilipinas Live, and NDTV. Backed by Blackstone and TechnoPro Holdings, we sponsored this research because the industry it describes is the one we work in every day.