We Talk Too Much About AI

A Call for Clarity

This essay was contributed by Rebecca Avery, founder and principal of Integration Therapy, a boutique advisory firm that guides media companies in optimizing streaming operations and aligning strategy with financial performance.

The Story We Keep Telling

At a conference earlier this year, I was waved into company booths by media tech vendors eager to show me their AI capabilities.

In deeper conversations about what business problems their solutions addressed, what guardrails they had in place to keep data clean, or how their tools could support both established and bespoke AI platforms, the tone often shifted to uncertainty. Many vendors seemed to lack crystal clarity on what their customers need, which is a surprising departure from my history of working with vendors who typically have a sharp sense of the problems they are solving. That gap is a shared responsibility across our ecosystem.

Indeed, this is the right moment for us, as both media professionals and consumers of AI, to clarif…