Markets

According to the extensive reportage published by the Spanish magazine RUBIK, the 2025 edition of Conecta Digital in Madrid offered a comprehensive overview of how technology, audience shifts, and new creative models are reshaping the audiovisual industry. Held on November 18 and 19 at Meeting Place in Calle Orense, the two-day event brought together professionals, creators, and startups to address topics ranging from the legal implications of artificial intelligence to the growing significance of gaming ecosystems as tools for cultural and commercial engagement. The conference concluded with an awards ceremony celebrating emerging ventures poised to redefine the sector’s future.

Conecta Digital 2025 positioned three thematic pillars at the core of the industry’s transformation: technological innovation, interactive creativity, and a deeper understanding of audience behavior. Across panels, keynote sessions, and showcases, speakers demonstrated how boundaries between content consumption, brand building, and digital participation are dissolving—and how this shift demands new strategies from broadcasters, producers, and distributors.

Day One: Artificial Intelligence Meets Immersive Creativity
The first day focused on the profound impact of artificial intelligence on audiovisual creation, distribution, and intellectual property. The opening panel, "Copyright in the Artificial Era: Challenges and the Future of the Audiovisual Sector", moderated by educator and podcaster Antonio Ortiz, offered a candid assessment of how AI destabilizes traditional copyright frameworks. Sergio Poza (LetsLaw) and Pelayo Puente (Baker McKenzie) contrasted European and U.S. legal approaches, highlighting Europe’s stricter stance—where even training AI models on copyrighted material may constitute infringement—versus the American doctrine of fair use, which interprets AI training as permissible if no direct harm to rights-holders is demonstrated. The panelists ultimately agreed that creators must ensure traceability in AI-generated content to safeguard authorship and mitigate legal exposure, particularly in areas such as synthetic voices, digital replicas, and image rights.

Immersive storytelling then took center stage, with a keynote illustrating how interactivity places audiences inside the narrative itself. This theme was reinforced by the showcase "Gamer Marketing: How to Use Videogames for the Promotion of Audiovisual Projects", presented by Algon Games. CEO Álvaro Vázquez and Audiovisual Project Manager Álex García demonstrated how virtual maps and digital environments built on platforms such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox have become essential infrastructures for brand loyalty. These gamified spaces act not as isolated promotional stunts, but as long-term audience-activation ecosystems that can generate measurable engagement, recurrent usage, and even revenue streams.

The afternoon featured showcases on next-generation production tools—from invisible sets to automated workflows—and real-world case studies using AI to enhance audiovisual development. The day concluded with roundtables exploring the value of innovation with purpose, warning against a tech-first mentality devoid of cultural relevance or creative integrity.

Among the presentations was Easy4you, a platform reshaping audiovisual production management. Introduced by Carlos Esteban of SILLERAS, the application integrates AI and HR-tech capabilities that allow producers to execute administrative tasks using natural language. The platform reduces physical paperwork, supports traceable workflows, and ensures human supervision over automated processes—an increasingly crucial requirement in complex audiovisual productions.

Day Two: Cracking the Code of Young Audiences
The second day expanded the scope from tools and legality to the fundamental question animating every content decision: how to reach—and retain—the next generation of viewers.
In the keynote "Digital First: Decoding the DNA of Young Audiences", Javier Martínez (You First-Gersh), Beltrán Gortázar (YouPlanet Studios), and Kaio Grizzelle (Channel 4) outlined a paradigm shift in consumption habits. Short-form content, vertical formats, and the logic of the infinite scroll have established new aesthetic norms, forcing traditional media to adapt to distribution strategies pioneered by independent creators. The session emphasized that while algorithms can refine editorial decisions, creative vision must remain human-driven.
The centrality of emotion—with or without AI—was the focus of the keynote by Fabio Seidl, Global Head of Creative & Brand at X. Seidl argued that artificial intelligence does not replace narrative craft but augments it. Featuring examples like the Dutch project Nextroom Brand, where AI recreated artworks based on historical data, he showcased how machine-assisted creativity can accelerate relevance, trend detection, and community cohesion. However, he stressed that emotional resonance remains the most powerful differentiator brands can own.

Gaming as the New Marketing Frontier
Antonio Ferrer of Gameloft delivered one of the conference’s most data-rich interventions, explaining why gaming is no longer an entertainment niche but a universal language. With more than 3.6 billion players worldwide—over 40 percent of the global population—gaming environments represent fertile commercial terrain. Ferrer cited research showing that emotional engagement during gameplay surpasses that of other digital media by 14 percent, positioning gamification as a high-yield strategy for brand recall and user loyalty.

The closing panel, "What Future Awaits Us?", moderated by Carlos José “CJ” Navas, examined how broadcasters and platforms must pivot to survive. Executives from Atresplayer, IB3, and the Asociación de Internautas converged on a shared assessment: public service broadcasters, commercial players, and digital creators all face a scenario in which youth audiences are platform-agnostic, device-fluid, and expectation-rich. The audiovisual industry must therefore evolve from passive distribution models to participatory ecosystems—while balancing innovation with privacy protection and sustainability.

The event concluded by recognizing startups positioned to drive the sector’s next breakthroughs:
Premio Conecta Digital: Ubicuity (€1,500)
Premio SEGO Venture: Artgonuts (mentorship valued at €2,500)
Premio Leanspots: XR (six-month consultancy valued at €4,000)
Premio Innoventures: Ubicuity (four months of financial advisory worth €6,000)