All through December we’re rolling out an exclusive series of Q&As with the sector’s leading thinkers as they peer into their digital crystal balls and offer their take on what the next 12 months could bring.
Today’s predictions are from The Connected Set’s founder Jason Mitchell.
What’s the single biggest shift you expect to see in digital-first production and publishing in 2026?
Social becomes the primary R&D lab for new IP, because it’s where young audiences find genuine originality. There’s so many reboots, copycat shows and spin-offs on TV and streamers now, but I live in hope they get their mojo back.
Which platform behaviour or algorithm change do you think will matter most next year, and why?
Platforms will use even more sophisticated video-native LLMs to understand, classify and personalise content, making video fully searchable and making human curation a niche occupation.
Where will your company’s biggest increase in revenue come from in 2026 – CPMs, brand spend, partnerships, new revenue models or something else?
Not from “making more video” but from strategy, audience design and helping with monetisation models. As AI increasingly commoditises production we’ll make more profit from the ‘thinking’ we do for clients rather than for actual physical production services.
What creative formats or genres do you think will break out next year?
In 2025 the hype was micro dramas, so maybe micro-reality is next? It’s built for curiosity, conflict and binge-scrolling, so it could be a winner!
How do you expect the relationship between traditional broadcasters/ distributors and digital-native studios to evolve in 2026?
Creators and digital producers are now being recognised for their valuable original IP, so more distributors will fund and scale creator-born formats, with negotiating power shifting decisively to the creators (no more cheap options, sorry!)
What’s one data point, trend, or move from 2025 that people are underestimating – and what does it signal?
Have you tried booking a holiday with Open AI’s Atlas? If you have then you will appreciate that agentic AI could do so much more. I predict agentic AI workflows deliver a 25% productivity jump in production operations, completely reshaping staffing and production timelines.
If you could give one piece of advice to producers or creators preparing for 2026’s digital-first landscape, what would it be?
Don’t replicate yesterday’s YouTube playbook. We launched Mashed in 2013 when there was plenty of white space on YouTube, but now it’s highly saturated. I fear for producers launching on YouTube from scratch. Instead find business models and niches with less competition.
Anything else to add?!
Ignore the hype and vanity metrics – social is full of inflated success stories and ‘shortcuts’ that don’t actually work. When you’re told a show cost £50 to make (but there’s actually 50 people working on it paid from overheads), or a channel is a huge hit (but it turns out all those views were bought), dig deeper!
