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LAS VEGAS — While Hollywood’s creative class has spent the past several years perseverating about what generative artificial intelligence will do to its careers, it’s now time for the back-office legions of account execs and ad sellers to start worrying, too. “Agentic AI,” autonomous systems that can set goals, plan, reason and take actions independently to achieve complex objectives with minimal human intervention, has been the M&E buzz topic this week, with an expected 150,000 exhibitors and attendees convening in Nevada’s currently down-on-its-luck gambling and vice mecca for CES 2026. This Variety Entertainment Summit panel of marketers from Tuesday eloquently explained what all the kids are talking about … and why having “AI Agents” replace humans for things like data entry and advertising transactions will be accretive not job-killing. (From right to left, IAB CEO David Cohen moderates discussion of the topic dejour between panelists Ektra Copra, Elfbeauty chief data officer, Typeface CMO Jason Ing, Criteo CEO Michael Komasinksi and UTA+MediaLink Managing Director Mark Wegman.)

The specter of “AI Agents” replacing thousands of back-office roles hasn’t been just about high-level conjecture at CES. NBCUniversal had a real-world application to tout Wednesday, announcing new partnerships with its advanced-advertising corporate sibling Freewheel, independent ad agency RPA and Newton Research, to launch a agentic ad buying scheme spanning linear and digital. Here’s a demo:

“By reengineering manual processes with operational efficiencies, we are enabling greater human focus and expertise on key strategic and marketplace nuances,” said RPA CEO Jim Helberg, in a statement. Speaking on the Wednesday panel “AI in Overdrive” at the two-day Penske Media-produced conference within a conference, Jill Steinhauser, group senior VP of platform monetization and partnerships for Warner Bros. Discovery engaged in a bit of the happy talk, describing “a new opportunity for those who embrace the change.” After all, “who manages the agents?” she rightly pointed out. Steinhauser conceded, however, that agentic AI “certainly raises a lot of concerns about workforces and how many people you need to run a business.” My guess: Less people, not more.

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Some other TMT-centric CES 2026 headlines:

Cineverse adds Giant Worldwide to its burgeoning Matchpoint media services empire

Cineverse, which is trying to supplement expensive, labor-intensive video processing tasks with automated AI-driven workflows via its burgeoning Matchpoint division, announced the all-cash acquisition of media services company Giant Worldwide.

Cineverse didn’t announce how much it paid for the New York-based Giant, but it did disclose that it expects the company to contribute pro forma revenue of $15 million - $17 million and pro forma EBITDA of $3.5 million - $4 million. This recurring revenue, Cineverse said, is “derived from ongoing service relationships with major Hollywood studio and streaming platform clients.”

“This acquisition represents a pivotal moment for Matchpoint and for the media services industry,” said Tony Huidor, president of technology and chief product officer at Cineverse. “We are immediately adding a significant base of prestigious Hollywood studio relationships by combining Giant Worldwide’s long-standing client relationships with Matchpoint’s advanced AI-native infrastructure. The result is something the industry has never seen: a platform aided by artificial intelligence that can ingest, normalize, enrich, and deliver large studio film libraries across hundreds of endpoints with minimal manual intervention.”

— Daniel Frankel

The Future of Shopping? AI + Actual Humans.

AI has changed how consumers shop, but people still drive decisions. Levanta’s research shows affiliate and creator content continues to influence conversions, plus it now shapes the product recommendations AI delivers. Affiliate marketing isn’t being replaced by AI, it’s being amplified.

Download the full report

Akta integrates Google Gemini-powered search and content optimization into its ‘AI-first’ video production tool

Akta, which built its “AI-first” video platform around Gemini, has announced new capabilities based on the Google large language model.

At CES 2026, Akta is showcasing AI-powered search features that let broadcasters and media publishers find, understand and act on content instantly across live, VOD, archives, metadata, transcripts and other applications. Users can search inside video to find moments, quotes, names, topics and events. They can auto-generate and normalize metadata, so results improve over time. They can return precise segments, not just full programs, ready for clipping, publishing or syndication. This cuts hours of manual logging into minutes, speeding production workflows and reducing dependency on “tribal knowledge (i.e. “Who knows where that segment is?”).

Meanwhile, AI-enabled content optimization automatically improves quality, efficiency and performance for content across live, FAST and VOD. Instead of relying on static presents and manual tuning, Akta’s platform continuously analyzes content complexity, audience devices, network conditions and playback performance, then optimizes how each asset is prepared, delivered and monetized.

— D.F.

Broadcom unveils new WiFi 8 chipsets

The WiFi Alliance only announced the certification program for WiFi 7 a year ago, marking the standard’s formal debut. The WiFi 8 standard hasn’t even been officially finalized yet, but chipmaker Broadcom has already started debuting its foundations.

At CES this week, Broadcom unveiled two new pieces of dual-band WiFi 8 silicon, the BCM6714 and BCM6719. The chipmaker says its new platform delivers “compute acceleration, advanced networking and robust security, manifesting in high throughput, low latency and intelligent optimization necessary for the emerging AI-connected ecosystem.”

Nine out of 10 AI agents agree.

— D.F.

Asus debuts ROG NeoCore, its new (and oddly shaped) WiFi 8 router

You probably have held off buying WiFi 7 routers, which use the cutting-edge WiFi wireless connectivity standard that has been in the wild for about a minute.

Which is good, because WiFi 8, its successor, is already getting product announcements at CES, even though most people still rely on some relatively pokey predecessor. Gamer-centric computer maker Asus announced the ROG NeoCore, a Death Star- looking "router concept" whose final specifications are still in draft form.

The routers are designed to work with each other as a mesh network, improving throughput and allocating bandwidth on the fly, for an alleged doubling of mid-range throughput and Internet of Things coverage, and 6X lower latency. It's supposed to improve connectivity in bandwidth-saturated situations such as apartment buildings, and improve two-way connections with smart lights and other low-power devices. Aren't you glad you waited?

— David Bloom

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DirecTV starts shifting its business customers off satellites

Finally, DirecTV, which has been shifting its customers off satellites for several years, announced a new streaming product for its small business subscribers.

The service is designed for customers who have enough bandwidth, and primarily for those who reside in metropolitan areas without great line-of-sight to the southern sky.

— D.F.