DTG FutureTech 2026: Building the IP Future Without Losing the Audience

Recently our CCO and Co-Founder, Dan Finish attended DTG FutureTech 2026. The event was not short on big topics. But what made the event interesting wasn’t the individual technologies, it was how consistently speakers returned to the same underlying tension: the future is arriving quickly, but not everyone is arriving with it.

Across policy, product, and platform conversations there was a key theme. The shift to IP delivery is happening and cannot be stopped. The adoption of AI is unavoidable. But neither is neutral, and neither will deliver good outcomes if left entirely to market forces or technological momentum.

IP Is the Destination, Inclusion Is the Challenge

The opening DTG session set the context. UK audiences are moving from broadcast to IP-delivered television because they want to, not because they are being forced. Yet a purely market-led transition risks leaving a meaningful minority behind.

By the mid-2030s, close to two million UK households are expected to remain without IP-connected TVs, with hundreds of thousands lacking broadband altogether unless targeted action is taken. These households are not simply “offline” by choice they are “offline” due to cost, technical knowledge or geography.

Access to TV increasingly overlaps with access to healthcare, public services, banking, and social connection. The principle of universality that has underpinned UK public service broadcasting for decades does not automatically survive an IP transition.

The comparison to the original Digital Switchover is obvious. However, that transition worked because it was managed, not because it was technologically simple. It relied on trust, coordination, regulation, and a clear commitment that no one would be left behind. The same will be required again only this time, the challenge extends beyond television into the wider digital lives of people.

How Broadcasters Are Learning to Change Differently

Broadcasters at the event also spoke candidly about how they are changing. There was an agreement that the era of massive, decade-long technology bets is ending. In its place is a more pragmatic approach: smaller, incremental improvements delivered quickly, combined with occasional large-scale replacements when platforms become genuinely obsolete.

Agility and simplicity were recurring themes. Cloud adoption is now assumed, but so is the need to actively manage and optimise its cost. Technology strategy is becoming as much about restraint as ambitiondefining standards and ensuring teams are aligned around a shared narrative of change.

What stood out most was the emphasis on people in the age of AI. While new technologies will bring change, this change will be driven by people, it is not about replacing people but more about allowing everyone to be as efficient as possible.  

AI: Between Anxiety, Reality, and Responsibility

AI was never far from the conversation, but the tone was notably more mature than in previous years.

Several speakers pushed back on the idea that AI is directly responsible for widespread job losses. In many cases, AI has become a convenient explanation for decisions driven by market. The result is a narrative that creates fear without accurately reflecting reality. That does not mean the risks are imaginary, they are simply different from what most people would assume.

Data quality emerged as a major concern. Large models trained on the open internet increasingly ingest content generated by other AI systems, compounding errors and bias. This “junk in, junk out” problem makes broad, general-purpose models harder to govern and less reliable over time. On the other hand, narrow, task-specific AI systems consistently deliver better outcomes.

For creative industries, trust is the central issue. Concerns around scanning, training data, and consent all came up throughout the sessions. Even when the technology in question is not strictly AI, these issues need to be looked at. Ethical data sourcing and clear boundaries are becoming prerequisites for adoption.

Security is also a key issue with AI lowering the barrier for malicious activity, enabling attackers to find new ways around traditional defences. As a result, AI is rapidly becoming both a threat and a part of the defence against itself.  

Latency and the Meaning of “Live” in an IP World

One of the most interesting sessions of the day focused on latency. Latency has always existed. However, IP streaming extending it has changed how live content feels.

The consequences are the similar to what they always have been, neighbours celebrating goals before your stream catches up, social media spoiling live events, radio competitions closing before smart-speaker listeners even hear them. These are not  isolated cases; they are issues of an IP delivery model built around buffering and congestion management.

What made this session important was the evidence that broadcast-level latency parity is now achievable. Public trials showed that low-latency IP delivery can work at scale using existing standards and commercial CDNs. The barriers are no longer primarily technical.

Instead, the challenge lies in balancing latency reduction against quality, reliability, device compatibility, and cost. As with inclusion, latency is becoming a choice. If IP is to fully replace broadcast, it must replicate not just reach, but immediacy and shared experience.

Choosing the Shape of the Future

By the end of FutureTech 2026, one conclusion was clear, the UK media industry is no longer waiting for technology to mature. The technology is already here but what remains unresolved is how deliberately it will be applied.

An unmanaged IP transition risks exclusion and fragmentation. Poorly governed AI risks undermining trust, creativity, and security. Ignoring latency risks the very idea of “live” television. None of these outcomes are inevitable but avoiding them requires a willingness to learn from past transitions.

The Digital Switchover succeeded because it treated universality as a non-negotiable outcome, not a side effect. The next transition will be more complex, but the principle remains the same.

The future of UK media will not be defined by IP, AI, or cloud platforms alone. It will be defined by the choices made about who those technologies are built for and who they leave behind.

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