With AI flooding all aspects of the M&E value chain, how can new entrants and legacy players upskill with hands-on experience? At IBC2025, the high-intensity, two-day Google Hackfest brought together disparate digital innovators, engineers, content creators, and tech enthusiasts to share knowledge and forge the future of broadcast.

Recorded live from IBC2025, episode six of the IBC365 Accelerating Innovation podcast hosted thought-leaders from the 2025 IBC x Google Hackfest Collaboration to find out more.

Teams from ITV, Channel 4, RTÉ and Sky came together for a day of rapid-fire innovation, creative problem-solving, and AI-powered development. The event involved: standing up broadcast infrastructure to create a FAST Channel in Google Cloud; creating content that is both real and made with GenAI; and creatively leveraging the stack and content output.

In this episode, Mark Smith, Lead for the IBC Accelerator Programme, was joined by Justin Grayston, Head of Customer Engineering TMEGA at Google Cloud, and Chris Hampartsoumian, Cloud Customer Engineer, Media and Entertainment at Google Cloud.

Exploring IBC's collaboration with Google Cloud to develop a Hackathon at IBC2025, the team discuss the process and results of uniting developers, creatives, and media technologists in a two-day sprint to prototype new AI-powered broadcast solutions.

At the World Skills Café (WSC) at IBC2025, Caretta Research’s Angeliki Megariti stated: “The biggest barrier for broadcast and media buyers is a lack of AI skills”. Discover more here.