es In a recent Q&A with decodeTV, Setplex Co-Founder and CEO Lionel Dreshaj shares his view on what’s really separating the streaming platforms pulling ahead from the ones falling behind — and it isn’t a feature list.
Ahead of IBC 2026, Lionel points to a shift he expects the industry to reckon with: bolting AI onto an existing platform doesn’t actually move the needle. “It must be native to the product — and that’s the test we apply to everything we build,” he says, pointing to Zapflex’s search, super aggregation, analytics, and ad automation capabilities as built AI-native from the ground up rather than layered on top.
He’s equally direct about what will dominate hallway conversations at the show. “Operators are getting squeezed from both sides — it costs more to acquire subscribers, and consumers are less willing to pay a premium,” he explains, framing this year’s real topics as home-screen aggregation, stopping churn driven by buffering, and diversifying revenue through hybrid models rather than subscriptions alone.
On content discovery, he’s equally clear-eyed: static grids no longer scale to today’s libraries, and semantic, intent-based search has moved from nice-to-have to the thing standing between a viewer staying — or switching apps.
Read the full article on decodeTV here.
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Meet Setplex at IBC 2026, Hall 5, Stand 5.B82. Book a meeting: https://setplex.com/resource-hub/ibc-2026 or reach out to us at [email protected].
