Forrester: Big Media's growth engines will hit the limit in 2027

Big Media’s established growth engines will come under pressure in 2027 as streaming subscriptions mature, linear TV audiences decline and consumers increasingly turn to AI for product discovery, according to Forrester’s latest Media & Advertising Predictions.

The research firm expects the industry to respond by opening up new advertising models and rethinking how media value is measured, with free streaming tiers, conversational advertising, AI-powered glasses and women’s sports among the areas set for greater investment.

Forrester’s overarching theme for 2027 is “Big Media growth engines hit the limit and pivot”, as media companies face changing ownership structures, increased regulatory scrutiny and shifts in how audiences discover and consume content.

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Among its predictions, Forrester expects at least three major subscription video-on-demand providers to launch free tiers supported by advertising.

The shift comes as paid subscriber growth becomes harder to sustain and advertising becomes more central to streaming economics. Forrester said free ad-supported TV services are already gaining ground, with Tubi reaching 22% of monthly users in 2026, compared with 21% for Apple TV.

Disney+ is identified as a potential candidate for a free tier, given its existing advertising technology infrastructure, while Netflix has previously acknowledged that free offerings could make sense in some markets. Forrester said the identity of a third provider is less clear, citing factors including advertising infrastructure and ownership uncertainty.

The firm also predicts that conversational advertising will become a multibillion-dollar channel as consumers move from keyword searches towards AI-mediated experiences.

As users increasingly rely on services such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Google’s AI-powered search experiences, Forrester expects brands to put more spending behind advertising formats that appear within or alongside AI-generated answers and recommendations.

Unlike conventional search or display advertising, conversational ads could allow brands to engage consumers through dialogue, bringing discovery, evaluation and purchase consideration into a single interaction.

Forrester expects Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok and Microsoft, alongside AI providers such as OpenAI, to be among the companies positioned to develop these advertising opportunities.

The shift towards AI-mediated discovery is also expected to change the metrics marketers use to assess media effectiveness.

Forrester predicts “recommendation share” will replace impressions as a top media KPI, reflecting a move from measuring whether an advertisement was seen towards measuring whether an AI system recommends a brand when consumers are researching products or services.

Meanwhile, AI-powered wearables could create another advertising frontier.

Forrester predicts Meta will launch the first scaled advertising platform for AI glasses, as the company looks for new sources of advertising growth and AI-powered wearables become more closely tied to product discovery, local search, navigation and commerce.

The research firm points to Meta’s existing position in the AI glasses market, including more than seven million AI glasses sold, as well as its expansion beyond Ray-Ban through Oakley partnerships and Meta-branded devices.

Forrester also expects sponsorship spending to shift further towards women’s sports, predicting that five Fortune 500 brands will move sponsorship investment from men’s to women’s sports. Growing audiences and sponsorship demand, alongside the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, are expected to accelerate interest in women’s sporting properties.

Taken together, the predictions point to a media landscape where the value of an advertising opportunity increasingly depends on proximity to consumer intent - whether that is an AI-generated recommendation, a conversational exchange or an AI-enabled wearable.

For marketers, Forrester’s outlook suggests that established measures such as reach and impressions will increasingly sit alongside metrics focused on what consumers are recommended, where discovery happens and how quickly media can move audiences towards action.

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