2025 Digital Media Trends: Social platforms are becoming a dominant force in media and entertainment

People still want the TV and movie experience offered by traditional studios, but social platforms are becoming competitive for their entertainment time—and even more competitive for the business models that studios have relied on. Social video platforms offer a seemingly endless variety of free content, algorithmically optimized for engagement and advertising. They wield advanced ad tech and AI to match advertisers with global audiences, now drawing over half of US ad spending.1 As the largest among them move into the living room, will they be held to higher standards of quality?