For the first time in a long time, nearly every corner of the media industry is in play. Few calendar years have approached with this much uncertainty and this much consequence — about who will own media, how consumers will discover it, and how companies will make money from it.

FOX is buying Roku. Comcast is splitting NBCUniversal. Paramount is fighting to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Meta is retooling its platform following its landmark settlement. And Google is rebuilding search around AI-generated answers. The growth engines that powered Big Media for the past decade aren’t delivering the same growth they once did. Subscription revenue is harder to find; linear TV audiences keep shrinking; and social platforms face new limits on growth. Meanwhile, search is yielding to AI-mediated answers.

That’s the backdrop for our 2027 media and advertising predictions theme: Big media growth engines hit the limit and pivot. Entering 2027, some of the industry’s biggest companies are confronting some of the biggest decisions that will define their next decade. Forrester predicts:

Three big streamers will ditch subscription-only economics and launch free tiers.

Streaming services spent years luring consumers to pay for premium content. But constant price hikes have weakened their original selling point: affordability. That’s one of the reasons why free ad-supported TV (FAST) is already stealing share from subscription video on demand (SVOD). FAST service Tubi grew from 18% to 22% monthly users in 2026, surpassing SVOD service Apple TV at 21%. Because paid subscriber growth is harder to find, advertising revenue has become core to streaming’s economics. So much so that we predict at least three SVOD providers will launch free tiers in 2027. But which ones?

Disney+ looks like the most obvious candidate, as it’s already discussing free access and has the adtech infrastructure to support it. Netflix feels like the next contender after acknowledging that “free offerings could make sense in some markets.” The third slot is harder to call. Apple has a new CEO and is expanding Apple TV beyond originals with licensed content but lacks the adtech stack needed to operate a scaled ad-supported streaming business. Peacock’s YouTube distribution deal may deliver audience scale without a free tier. Prime Video remains a core benefit of Prime membership. And Paramount Plus and HBO Max would be strong candidates, but ownership uncertainty will delay major product decisions.

Meta will launch the first scaled advertising platform for AI glasses.

Meta’s landmark $17 billion settlement over youth social media use strengthens the probability of this prediction. The company agreed to significant changes for younger users, prompting investor concerns about future advertising growth on Facebook and Instagram. That accelerates Meta’s need to mine alternative ad revenue sources. Forrester predicts those new opportunities will come from AI glasses, which sit closer to consumer intent than other Meta platforms.

As AI agents take a larger role in product discovery, local search, navigation, recommendations, and commerce, Meta will introduce sponsored results, contextual recommendations, and conversational advertising into those experiences. The company already controls the vast majority of the AI glasses market, has sold more than 7 million AI glasses, and continues expanding beyond Ray-Ban through Oakley partnerships and new Meta-branded devices. Although competitors like Snap and Samsung are entering the category, Meta heads into 2027 with the audience, device scale, AI infrastructure, and advertiser relationships needed to commercialize the medium first.

Conversational ads will become a multibillion-dollar channel.

Consumers’ dramatic shift from keyword-based to AI-mediated search creates a variety of new ad inventory. Ads in and adjacent to AI-generated answers will command a premium from brands eager to address consumers at their point of intent. Unlike search and display ads, conversational ads engage users in dialogue. Their contextual resonance will reengage consumers who block invasive, irrelevant ads. The biggest ad platforms — Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok, and Microsoft — along with massive answer engine providers like OpenAI have the machine learning, addicted consumers, and agency relationships required to power full-funnel advertising.

Conversational ads will change the funnel’s shape as they compress discovery, evaluation, and commitment into a single interaction, minimizing advertisers’ time to value. Ad formats will become dynamic and artful to appeal to visual learners and generate richer intent signals than impressions or clicks alone. As brands vie to be recommended by AI, conversational ads will become natural extensions of paid search, commerce media, and answer engine optimization. By 2027, conversational ads will no longer be niche experiments but levers of brand growth leveraging precision, persuasion, measurement, and commerce in a single AI-powered experience.

Read our Predictions 2027: Media And Advertising report for all five of our predictions, along with more detail and specific advice for each of them. And be sure to attend our live webinar on Tuesday, October 27 featuring all of the Forrester analysts behind these 2027 predictions.

Not a Forrester client? Look out for our Predictions 2027 hub, coming October 21, which will feature blog posts, public webinars, and other resources to help you navigate change in the year ahead.

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