Beyond the Chatbot: Agentic AI and the Future of Media 

While many media executives are still experimenting with prompts, content generation, and basic automation, the frontier has already moved. AI is moving from the back office to the revenue line. It is no longer merely a way to reduce costs or automate production, but a way to create new products, new distribution channels, and new commercial relationships with audiences.

We are entering the era of Agentic AI: a shift from AI systems that simply answer questions to systems that can plan, act, coordinate workflows, personalize experiences, and increasingly operate on behalf of users.
For media companies, this is not just a technology shift. It is a structural shift. Discovery may become less search-led and more AI-orchestrated. Audiences may increasingly interact with intelligent intermediaries instead of websites, apps, search results, and feeds. Revenue models will evolve from subscriptions and advertising toward new forms of personalization, bundling, transactions, licensing, and AI-mediated distribution.

In this session, Paari Krishnamurthy, a strategy leader at OpenAI, will offer a practical, forward-looking view of what this transition means for media executives. Paari will explore how organizations can move beyond experimentation and start preparing for a more agentic digital economy. Topics will include the evolution from chatbots to AI agents, the real barriers to enterprise adoption, the rise of agentic workflows, the shift from cost savings to revenue creation, the implications of “everything apps,” and the long-term impact of AI on media discovery, audience relationships, and monetization.

For media and technology executives, the key question is shifting from “What can AI automate?” to “What happens when AI becomes the main interface for our audience and the internet?”