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Search giant and AI leader Baidu is working on reimagining its services with genAI, from search and document creation to digital avatars for livestream shopping. Currently, Baidu’s AI chatbot Ernie generates 18% of the company’s search results. India’s genAI sector is also gaining momentum.

Twitch’s share of the livestreaming market is steadily declining—going from 71% in 2023 to 61% in 2024, per Digiday—though it is still by and far the leader in this market. Our take: Despite Twitch having a lack of legitimate livestreaming competitors, not every brand sees this market as warranting investment.

For awards shows and sports, real-time engagement is everything—viewers expect flawless live streaming, not just a replay. The Oscars meltdown is part of a broader trend of technical failures in live streaming. As platforms continue to replace traditional TV, ensuring reliability will be essential to retaining subscribers and securing exclusive event partnerships in the future.

However, this year’s technical difficulties, including Hulu cutting off the live stream before announcing the final two awards, could hurt viewership in the future—and with only a 1% increase, Sunday’s ceremony proved that live streaming big events isn’t always enough to drive significantly higher viewership.

Retail livestreaming has reached a major milestone. This year, for the first time, livestreaming will account for 25.4% of retail ecommerce spending. The shopping format hit an inflection point in 2020 because of the pandemic and is still growing strongly: up 25.0% in 2024 YoY. By 2026, livestreaming’s proportion of retail ecommerce sales will hit 31.0%.