Host Lucy Trang Nguyen (Director of Strategic Alliances & Business Development for Emerging Technologies, Accedo) is joined by Laurence Boyd (Chief Content & Product Officer, E1 Series) and Charles-Edwin Root (Digital Manager, HBS) to unpack the first pilot of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA) — and what it means for rights holders, broadcasters, and tech partners who are beginning to take immersive seriously.

Using XRSA’s real-world deployment with the E1 Series as a case study, the discussion goes behind the scenes of bringing XR into live sports. You’ll hear how the teams approached strategy, operations, and collaboration, and what they learned from capturing immersive content on boats, buoys, podiums, and in XR headsets.

Learn where XR in sports is today, what actually resonates with fans, and how to build toward sustainable monetization instead of isolated experiments.

• What XRSA is and why it matters for the industry – 02:00

• Why now is the moment to test and learn in XR – 05:30

• XRSA’s first deployment with the E1 Series and lessons learned – 08:40

• What immersive really adds for fans, and who needs to be convinced internally – 19:45

• User testing insights: motion sickness, content formats, and reuse for social – 22:18

• Interactive XR, brand engagement, and the path to monetization – 29:00

• Practical advice on KPIs, rights constraints, and how to get started with XR today – 39:00

In this episode of Playback, host Bleuenn Le Goffic, VP Business Transformation at Accedo is joined by Michael Schmidt, Global Director, Industry Partnerships at AWS and Simon McGrath, Chief Marketing office at Merapar to explore how AI’s role in media and entertainment is rapidly evolving from experimental projects to fully operationalized, business-critical systems.

Together, they dive into the rise of agentic AI, composable architectures, and FinOps, and how these trends are reshaping technology investment, cost management, and audience engagement.

3:39 AI’s development in Media & Entertainment industry - have we moved past experimentation to operational use cases?

12:01 What would be the impact of AI on investment strategy and software procurement?

18:08 How AI distills data into decision points and reduces time to resolve operational events.

25:27 A shift in AI strategy to focus on growth, subscriber acquisition, churn reduction, and monetization strategies.

33:38 The future of OTT and consumer experience with AI

In this episode, Stephen Shaw (Senior Solutions Architect at New Relic) and Luke Gaydon (Head of Offering and Portfolio Management at Accedo) talk about the hurdles organizations face when deploying observability tools, and why it’s time for the industry to stop flying blind.

From real client objections to the evolution of the technology itself, they explore and exchange experiences on what’s worked, what hasn’t, and the risks of waiting too long to embrace the next-gen OTT observability stack.