The model that has driven the growth of some of the largest media and technology companies over the last decade is beginning to find its limits. Subscriptions are increasingly difficult to increase, linear television continues to lose audience, social platforms encounter obstacles to continue growing and traditional searches are beginning to give way to responses generated by artificial intelligence.

This is the scenario on which Forrester builds its “Predictions 2027: Media and Advertising”, a report that anticipates relevant changes in the way in which companies will distribute content, attract audiences and, especially, generate income over the next year. The consultant summarizes the moment under one idea: “The growth engines of the big media reach their limit and change course.” That is to say, the industry’s great growth engines are reaching their limits and will force companies to look for new avenues for monetization.

The business context reflects, according to Forrester, the magnitude of the change. The industry faces corporate movements, transformations of social platforms and a reconstruction of search around answers generated by AI. And behind all of them a common question appears: who will control the relationship with the audiences, how they will discover the content and where the next advertising revenue will be generated.

Free streaming will gain ground over subscriptions

One of Forrester’s main predictions is that at least three major subscription video-on-demand services will launch free modalities during 2027.

For years, streaming platforms built their growth around a simple proposition: pay a subscription in exchange for access to premium content. However, successive price increases have weakened one of the arguments with which these services initially became popular: their affordability. At the same time, FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) services, which offer content for free in exchange for advertising, are increasing their penetration. Forrester points to Tubi as an example, which went from reaching 18% of users monthly to 22% during 2026, thus exceeding the 21% recorded by Apple TV.

With the growth of paying subscribers becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, advertising is moving from being an adjunct to the streaming business to occupying a central position in its economy. Forrester considers that Disney+ is one of the clearest candidates to develop a free modality, since it has already publicly raised this possibility and has the advertising infrastructure to support it. It also points the finger at Netflix after the company acknowledged that free offerings could make sense in certain markets.

The identity of the third service is less obvious. Apple is expanding the Apple TV catalog beyond its original productions through licensed content, although Forrester believes that it currently lacks the advertising infrastructure necessary to operate a free ad-funded business at scale.

In other cases there are alternatives or uncertainties. Distributing Peacock through YouTube could give it audience scale without needing to develop a free modality; Prime Video continues to be an advantage included within the Amazon Prime subscription; and the decisions of Paramount+ and HBO Max could be conditioned by corporate movements around their owners.

The result would be a new step in the evolution of streaming: after competing to attract subscribers, the platforms would also begin to compete to attract free audiences and monetize them through advertising.

Meta could bring advertising to glasses with artificial intelligence

The second major transformation anticipated by Forrester will occur outside of traditional screens. The consulting firm predicts that Meta will launch the first large-scale advertising platform for glasses with artificial intelligence.
Opportunity, according to the analysis, is related to the proximity of these devices to the user’s intent. As AI agents become more actively involved in processes like discovering products, performing local searches, browsing, receiving recommendations, or purchasing, glasses could create new spaces for connecting brands and consumers. Forrester thus anticipates formats such as sponsored results, contextual recommendations and conversational advertising integrated into these experiences.

Meta also starts with a relevant position in this category. According to figures collected by the consulting firm, the company has sold more than 7 million glasses with artificial intelligence and continues to expand its presence beyond Ray-Ban through collaborations with Oakley and devices marketed under its own brand.
Although companies like Snap and Samsung are also entering this market, Forrester believes that Meta reaches 2027 with a combination of device scale, AI infrastructure, audience and relationships with advertisers that would allow it to be the first to monetize this new support on a large scale.

The forecast also implies an expansion of the concept of advertising inventory. The ad would stop depending exclusively on a screen to be integrated into the recommendations and responses that a person receives while interacting with a smart device.

Conversational ads could be a multi-billion dollar business

It is precisely in the conversation with artificial intelligence where Forrester identifies another of the large advertising markets of 2027. The consultancy anticipates that conversational ads will become a multi-million dollar channel, driven by the shift from keyword searches to queries made to AI-based assistants and response engines.

This change opens up new advertising spaces both within and around responses generated by artificial intelligence. Forrester, brands will be willing to pay a high price to appear in these environments due to the user’s proximity to a specific intention. The difference compared to traditional search or display ads would be the ability to maintain a conversation. Instead of showing a creative and waiting for a click, advertising could answer questions, provide additional information and accompany the consumer during different phases of their decision.

That could also change the traditional marketing funnel structure. Discovery, evaluation and decision, which usually occur at different times and channels, could be concentrated within the same interaction. The formats, furthermore, would not have to be limited to text. Forrester expects them to be dynamic and visual, generating richer intent signals than traditional metrics like impressions or clicks.

The opportunity places companies that already have large audiences, artificial intelligence technology and consolidated relationships with advertisers and agencies in a particularly relevant position. Forrester mentions Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok and Microsoft, along with response engine providers with large audiences such as OpenAI, among the players with the capacity to develop this market.

Evolution could also bring together disciplines that are currently worked on in a differentiated way. According to the consultancy, conversational advertising could develop as a natural extension of paid search, digital commerce and response engine optimization. This would introduce a new battle for brands. It would no longer be just about appearing in the first results of a search engine or achieving visibility within a social network; They also have to be considered and recommended by artificial intelligence systems when a consumer raises a need, compares alternatives or prepares to buy.

Forrester predicts that in 2027 this type of advertising will leave the experimentation phase behind and begin to function as a growth tool capable of combining segmentation, persuasion, measurement and commerce within the same AI-powered experience.

The great engines of growth look for a replacement

The three predictions actually respond to the same movement. The big media and technology players need to find new surfaces, models and moments that they can monetize when the sources of growth of recent years begin to show signs of exhaustion.

In streaming, the answer would be to open content for free to increase audience and finance it through advertising. On social platforms, extend the advertising business to new devices such as smart glasses. And in the search, transfer the business model from the results pages to the conversations with artificial intelligence.

The result that Forrester draws is an industry in which content, search, commerce and advertising will be increasingly connected. And in which the battle for attention could shift from getting the consumer to visit a platform to being present in the response, recommendation or action they receive from an artificial intelligence.