Odd Lots · Saturday, September 19, 2026
Gene Sykes outlined two potential futures for AI in media: one where content creation becomes democratized and thus less valuable, and another where AI acts as a force multiplier for established intellectual property (IP) holders, enabling extensions and new forms of content. He noted that media incumbents, particularly in music, express anxiety about AI misuse of their content.
“So there is the one view. It's like anyone could be a media maker right now. Anyone could make video right now from their home office, and therefore the value of media becomes less valuable.”
“The other version I could see is if you have IP, if you have a name, if you have et cetera, AI could be this force multiplier. Maybe Tom Cruise will license nine versions of Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise could be in 10 movies.”
“I would say if you look at incumbents in the music industry, they're very anxious about bandit AI upending something that's been seasoned and built over a long period of time. So they look at how do I protect myself against somebody misusing content that was created by me or one of my clients or one of the people that I represent or I have a license with.”