What We Heard at IBC and How Uplynk Is Solving It

IBC 2025 made one thing clear: The pressure is on. Teams are trying to do more with less, and legacy workflows still dominate. Everyone's looking for smarter ways to scale, simplify, and monetize. Here's what we heard from customers and prospects, and how Uplynk is building for what's next.

Cost Pressure & Efficiency Demands

• What we heard: Organizations are reevaluating expensive, siloed systems. Budgets are tightening, teams are leaner, and there's a growing need for modular tools that integrate with what already exists.
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• How Uplynk is solving: We offer a modular platform that offers flexibility and lets customers start where it makes sense, whether that's SmartPlay: Ads for monetization, SmartPlay: Ingest for encoding flexibility, or StreamOps for expert operational support. Customers can adopt what they need, when they need it, without ripping and replacing.

AI with Guardrails

• What we heard: AI has moved beyond hype — it's now a baseline expectation. From personalization to smarter monetization, it's become less of a differentiator and more of a necessity. But adoption must come with control. Teams are asking for automation that enhances workflows without compromising accuracy, oversight, or editorial standards.
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• How Uplynk is solving: We're building AI features that are pragmatic, explainable, and built for real production environments. Uplynk Studio features human-in-the-loop tools, including clipping, metadata enrichment, and enhancements, designed to accelerate workflows. Our focus is on delivering AI that teams can trust and control, with clear outcomes and measurable value.

Future Proof Through Flexibility

• What we heard: Content owners are asking for built-in solutions that integrate—not isolate—workflows across transport protocols like Zixi and SRT. Broadcast-grade reliability remains essential, but no one wants to be locked into a walled garden.
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• How Uplynk is solving: Uplynk is built to work with the tools and partners broadcasters already use. With deep integrations across the ecosystem—including Zixi, Bitmovin, and more, we enable seamless workflows across acquisition, processing, and delivery. Our modular, API-first approach lets teams adopt only what they need—without ripping out what already works.

Cloud In Demand

• What we heard: Content owners are moving away from aging on-prem hardware. Maintaining infrastructure is expensive, limiting, and not where they want to invest. The shift is toward scalable, cloud-native workflows.
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• How Uplynk is Solving: Uplynk was built in the cloud from day one. We help teams leave behind the cost and complexity of physical infrastructure and move toward flexible, scalable streaming operations. No hardware to maintain. No capacity ceilings. Just a modern foundation that grows with your business. And for those with existing infrastructure, the on-prem slicing and encoding we offer can be a valuable option—especially as gear, server rooms, and data centers depreciate. If a customer already has rack units and capable boxes in place for other reasons, running on-prem for a period of time might make strategic and financial sense.

Monetization That Actually Works

• What we heard: SGAI is being talked up as the future of monetization. But FAST channels are maturing now, and teams need solutions today. They want more control over fallback slates, overlays, and SSAI logic without needing a dev team.  

• How Uplynk is solving: With SmartPlay: DAI, that future isn’t something you have to wait for. Uplynk already delivers personalized, per-user manifests with seamless fallback options, giving you flexibility and control today. Dynamic overlays extend monetization outside traditional ad breaks, while our intuitive platform removes the heavy lift from your team. And with our upcoming Ad Waterfall features, smaller teams can maximize every impression without extra engineering effort.

Simpler Operations, Not More Tools

• What we heard: Too many tools, too many touchpoints, too much risk. Teams want centralized visibility, clear ownership, and less operational overhead, especially for 24/7 streams and high-stakes live events.

• How Uplynk is solving: StreamOps is our managed service for live events and always-on channels. We act as an expert extension of your team, from planning to monitoring to postmortem, no matter what stack you're using.

Global Growth, Local Needs

• What we heard: LATAM and APAC are rising priorities. But expansion isn't just about availability, it's about understanding local ad systems, content preferences, and viewer expectations.

• How Uplynk is solving: We're working with partners across regions to ensure that our workflows, ad logic, and delivery models are tuned for local realities, not just global scale.

Final Thought

From smarter AI to scalable SSAI, from modular ingest to managed ops. Uplynk is helping content teams adapt to today's challenges without breaking what already works. If we didn't catch up at IBC, let's keep the conversation going.

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