On the Cusp of a Revolutionary Renaissance

By Joe Annotti, President & CEO, Media Financial Management Association (MFM)

I attended two industry conferences in the past three  weeks – the Borrell Conference for professionals on the advertising sales and marketing side of the business, and the MFM CFO Summit, for financial executives from all sectors of the media and entertainment business.

Two meetings with two wildly different audiences – but both with a common educational theme running just below the surface: we are in the midst of a revolution and the presence of artificial intelligence is accelerating the pace of change from rapid to light speed.Think about the last 600+ years of civilization, from the Renaissance (born from the depths of the Black Plague) to AI. We’ve experienced the agricultural revolution, the first, second and third Industrial Revolutions and now the Fourth Industrial Revolution of AI and digital capitalism is staring us firmly in the face.

The impact of this next revolution on the media and entertainment industry is particularly acute because we’re also experiencing the “great disruption” of streaming, cord-cutting and wholesale reinvention of the business model we’ve grown to love, while concurrently trying to understand and adapt to a new technology that will change virtually every aspect of our lives and work.

It’s frightening and thrilling at the same time. And if I left with one takeaway from these two conferences, it’s that I am going to stop standing on the sidelines and embrace the potential that AI can have on Media Financial Management Association and its members.

As a professional association of financial executives, we have a unique responsibility to lead the AI revolution in our industry. As was pointed out by more than a few speakers at each conference, finance has not been known for leading the way toward the use of new technologies.

Yet the power of the purse gives financial executives a unique opportunity to change that perception by doing the complex math of balancing investments in AI with the anticipated profits from their use. Admittedly, this is an inexact science at this stage of the game because using traditional methods to forecast such outcomes may not be applicable. Perhaps, with the help of AI, we can develop new forecasting methods to enhance the accuracy of our projections. The potential is limitless.

My decision to get off the AI sidelines and into the game is motivated both by fear (if I don’t do it, somebody else will – and I and my organization will lose out) and the spirit of exploration (I wonder what’s around the next corner). For me, it’s no longer a matter of preparing to deal with AI; it’s one of embracing It, and leading MFM to a new level of membership growth and customer service by utilizing a tool that literally gets more powerful every day.

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.