Wait, Did WarnerMedia Just Make A Huge Leap Forward In the Streaming Wars?
"We have a portfolio of opportunities to drive," Jesse Redniss, GM, WarnerMedia Innovation Lab told me as he showed me renderings atop a chic terrace hovering over La Croisette at one of the company’s events during the recent Cannes Lions Festival. He continued, "What we'll be focusing on is answering the question, 'what would content look like for 170 million phones as they converge with 5G and IoT?' And then determining how the company can share such knowledge, once it's developed, between all the units so that we can continue to be a future-forward media company."
Currently, WarnerMedia has seven foundries focused on various areas, in addition to Code Labs for HBO. Redniss says that there will be numerous collaborations between them with the Innovation Lab and that the information and findings will flow between executive leaders from various departments of the company who have been selected to make up an overall Innovation Council in order to best integrate new ideas and concepts. "Our intent," explains Redniss, "is rapid iteration."
The fact that the Lab will focus on areas that expand the company's core capabilities and create additional revenue streams from VR to Gaming to AI and much more, should make for interesting developments in the industry that could heat up the streaming wars even further.
Though WarnerMedia is based at Hudson Yards, this Lab will occupy space in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City come Q’1 of 2020. In case you missed it, this will be the company’s first innovation tech hub in Manhattan and one of AT&T’s first permanent 5G experience centers.