IBC 2026: Future Tech and the Startup Revolution

Hall 14 at IBC 2026 was the beating heart of Future Tech — where startups, research projects, and emerging companies showcased the innovations that will define the next decade of media technology.

The Future Tech Stage

The Future Tech Stage, sponsored by Microsoft, with headline support from Google and industry partners including AWS, HP, AMD, and Shure, packed in presentations on AI localisation, infrastructure security, and workflow automation.

Deepdub opened the day with a look at agentic AI orchestration for quality control across thousands of assets. Panjaya’s CEO Guy Piekarz discussed building an AI dubbing engine. EYZ Media demonstrated EYZFlow, its video intelligence platform for accessibility and localisation.

Microsoft’s Corporate VP Kevin Shatzkamer discussed orchestrating media intelligence at 12:45, ahead of Ation Tech and Vistex sessions on workflow automation and rights and royalties. Eluvio’s CEO Michelle Munson set out plans to replace satellite and legacy cloud distribution, followed by a panel on building the AI-ready media enterprise.

IBC Accelerator projects

Delta Protocol: The future of live streaming

“Delta Protocol: The Future of Live Streaming” took place at 11:30 on the Future Tech Stage. The project sets out to change the fundamental building blocks of live streaming, moving away from transmitting pixel by pixel towards an architecture built on scene instructions and semantic intelligence.

Champions on the project include EBU, RAI, IET, SMPTE, SBA (Saudi Broadcast Authority), and DAZN, working alongside participants Google Cloud, V-Nova, Eluvio, and NeoViews.

Rather than sending a continuous stream of frames, Delta Protocol has devices generate the viewing experience from AI-defined scene data. The team said the approach offers a blueprint for a more sustainable ecosystem, addressing hyper-personalisation for viewers, cutting the cost and complexity of delivery, and closing off the routes that make piracy possible.

Smart Stories: Shared editorial context

Later at 16:00 on the Future Tech Stage, the spotlight turned to newsrooms with the world premiere of “Incubator: Smart Stories — The New Knowledge Architecture for Content Production.” Having proved itself as an Accelerator project, Smart Stories has stepped up into this year’s Incubator, IBC’s platform for backing the strongest ideas with more resource.

The project’s starting point is a gap exposed by last year’s Agentic AI Accelerator: production systems could execute tasks, but they had no shared understanding of the editorial context behind them. Smart Stories responds with the Story Object Model (SOM) — an open standard that treats a story’s state, sources, and assets as a first-class object other systems can subscribe to, rather than context that lives in people’s heads, messaging apps, and hurried handoffs.

Champions include the BBC, ITN, NBCUniversal, Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, Channel 4, Sky, EBU, NBCUniversal, SMPTE, Reuters, Fonn Group, ITN, and Scripps.

As NBCUniversal’s Alex Bassett noted: “There is no shared context — agents are great, and can do what they want inside a tool, but they don’t know what’s happening.”

Q-Stream: Quantum-secure media infrastructure

“Q-Stream: Quantum Secure, Network-Adaptive, Verifiable, Live Media Infrastructure” ran from 10:00-11:00 on the final day. It explores how live video can stay usable and trustworthy when networks are congested, degraded, or compromised.

Rather than treating picture quality as the top priority, Q-Stream preserves the information that matters most, combining predictive network intelligence, semantic compression, and C2PA content credentials to keep streams intelligible even at very low bitrates.

VooPla: The Decision Twin

“VooPla: The Decision Twin” took place from 13:00-14:00, tackling a more down-to-earth problem: how producers choose a studio. The project prototyped a digital twin workflow that lets producers explore, compare, and pre-produce inside broadcast and virtual production studios before ever setting foot in them, folding in sustainability data alongside the usual questions of capability and cost.

Startup Showcase

The Future Tech Ignite Stage opened each day with a Startup Showcase, where EIT Culture & Creativity-backed founders pitch to the industry. More than 50 emerging companies remained on show throughout the event, giving visitors a last chance to see the technologies and business ideas shaping Future Tech Ignite.

Notable startup and emerging tech

Klassifier’s enterprise voice AI

AI translation specialist Klassifier demonstrated an enterprise AI voice agent platform designed for broadcasters and media companies seeking multilingual voice automation. The platform combines ASR, LLMs, RAG, enterprise knowledge retrieval, API-based workflow orchestration, emotion-aware text-to-speech, and voice cloning for low-latency conversational AI.

“Voice is becoming the next interface between organisations and people,” said CEO Engin Ozer. “Our goal is to make those interactions as natural, multilingual and accessible as human conversation.”

Accssoon’s mobile ecosystem

Accsoon introduced a new modular iPhone 18 Capture Ecosystem, designed to help users create with greater flexibility, simplicity, and confidence. Rather than individual accessories, the company built an integrated ecosystem for lightweight mobile setups for a variety of scenarios.

SMDV’s active softbox

SMDV’s Cine offers the reach and control of a reflector while being fast to adapt to production changes, designed as an active optical tool rather than a passive diffuser. The company also unveiled Cine Bounce 220, a portable ceiling light creating broad, natural ambient light without depending on ceiling height, colour, or availability.

Einbliq.io’s streaming observability

Einbliq.io showcased an observability platform for streamers supporting CMCD v2 event mode and agentic investigation workflows. The platform connects viewer-side quality problems with delivery evidence, using domain-aware agents to translate rebuffers or playback failures into specific CDN-level evidence.

Future Tech Ignite professional development

The Future Tech Ignite Stage, new to IBC 2026 and located within the Future Tech hub in Hall 14, turned its focus to people. Sessions explored professional development, backed by advocacy partners including Rise (Women in Broadcast), Women in Streaming Media, and #GALSNGEAR.

EIT Culture & Creativity, the European Innovation Partner for Future Tech Ignite, brought its pan-European network of startups, research institutes, and creative clusters into the mix. The organisation’s programme examined competitiveness, entrepreneurship, commercialisation, AI, intellectual property, and skills through practical examples.

“As Innovation Partner, EIT Culture & Creativity is helping to curate Europe’s innovation community through the Future Tech Ignite programme,” said Anette Schaefer, CEO. “We help innovators connect with the people and organisations that can bring new ideas to market.”

IBC Exchange and Braindate

IBC Exchange, powered by Braindate, turned a packed schedule into meaningful conversations. The peer-to-peer platform lets attendees join or host one-to-one and small-group discussions before, during, and after the show. Pass holders could also drop into the Braindate Lounge in the Future Tech zone for curated networking.

“There’s an emerging need for a curated peer-to-peer networking experience throughout IBC,” commented Michael Crimp, CEO of IBC. “IBC Exchange offers a more structured opportunity to exchange knowledge, address challenges, and share expertise.”

I am Luca Berton, AI and Cloud Advisor. I work at the intersection of cloud security, platform engineering, and enterprise AI deployments. Book a consultation.