2025: – Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Sam Bogoch, Axle.ai

[This article is part of a series where I invited media industry leaders to share their thoughts on 2025 and what it means for the future. Sam Bogoch is the CEO/Co-founder of Axle.ai. Website: Axle.ai. ]

The AI Genie is Explosively Out of the Bottle

As we look back on 2025 and ahead to 2026, the biggest headline in the creative industries simply has to be AI. It’s occupied an outsized role in the news, in investment, and in the way people look at their current and future roles in the media business.

In previous years, it was possible to look at AI as something on the horizon, not yet impacting our day-to-day work. As CEO of Axle.ai (we create media search software that employs machine learning) I can remember NAB shows before COVID when booth visitors would ask if there wasn’t a typo in our logo – wouldn’t .io or .video make more sense? It’s safe to say that I don’t get that question anymore.

Looking specifically at 2025 – across wide swaths of production, postproduction and media distribution, AI’s impact is starting to be felt. It’s begun to displace a lot of entry-level VFX; why commission an expensive sequence for previsualization when you can get something usable from a prompt? And likewise, it’s enhancing high end VFX as AI-powered enhancements percolate into the most sophisticated pipelines.

There has also been an economic impact in 2025, as AI’s progress has compounded with other trends – the move away from traditional high-end post facilities contributed to the closing of Evolutions, one of London’s top post houses, in December – and in LA, layered on top of regional production incentives elsewhere, COVID, the strikes and the Palisades fires, it seems to be accelerating the ‘hollowing out’ of that longtime industry powerhouse. It’s not yet clear how directly linked this decentralization trend is to AI, but there’s no doubt that today’s AI-powered tools are available everywhere, not just in NY, LA and London.

Broadly speaking, AI is making it easier for a wide swath of people, many of whom may not have been specialized in the video industries, to create impactful content. Simple editing tools like CapCut and Descript aren’t trying to replace high end editors like Resolve and Premiere – they’re democratizing the ability to crank out simple edits without training. Likewise, virtual studios like Lightcraft and other AI-enhanced techniques are making it possible to create really slick-looking footage without requiring access to expensive sets. Finally, in our part of the industry – media search and repurposing – AI is having a massive impact, as you can now affordably find specific content from terabytes or petabytes of previously-scrambled footage, and put that content to work as part of social media campaigns or new edits.

As we head into 2026, there’s already an arms race developing between those who are trying to create differentiated content, and the waves of AI-generated “slop” that can audience-test hundreds or thousands of versions of a completely synthetic clip. Powerful tools like DataClay let you build variants from existing and synthetic media; but it’s still not clear how much of our future media landscape will be crafted as opposed to just thrown together at random from GenAI sources like Runway and Veo.

The takeaway for 2026: If you’ve been relying on access to elite tools or facilities to make a living, it’s time to look much more closely at what’s becoming available to everyone. Some of this may not be relevant to your work today, but being aware of it and ready to harness it when it makes sense for your clients will keep your career thriving, to the extent that broader trends allow. The genie definitely isn’t going back in the bottle at this point, so it’s time to figure out how to make the genie work for you.