Vivek Couto on AI, microdramas and the reinvention of Asia Media

The title of Vivek Couto’s opening speech at APOS 2026 uses the word ‘reset’. He has a more precise term in mind.

“It’s not really being reset,” said Couto, CEO and executive director of Media Partners Asia, which is organizing the annual summit from June 16 to 18 in Bali. “It’s actually being redefined. The entire industry is being redefined in terms of the opportunities, in terms of new revenue streams, and frankly, in terms of the cost structures that one has to adopt.”

That distinction – incremental disruption versus structural transformation – is the animating tension of the APOS agenda. The conference, now in its second decade as the Asia-Pacific’s premier media gathering, has attracted executives from JioStar, Warner Bros. Discovery, Crunchyroll, iQIYI, Viu, TVING, Prime Video, Netflix, Disney and YouTube are brought together to interrogate what the company is becoming: something that can no longer be described in the vocabulary of the industry that built it.

According to Couto, the forces driving this transformation are multiple and simultaneous. AI has gone from a panel discussion at a conference to an operational reality. Streaming is no longer a land grab, but is starting to deliver real profits. Sports have become a pillar of the entertainment economy. And microdramas – short, vertical video built on gamified entertainment principles – have gone from novelty to a true consumption category.

“Microdramas are no longer a curiosity,” says Couto. “It’s a real consumption category, and there’s data to prove it.”

According to Couto, DramaBox and ReelShort, the two profitable peers in the microdrama space, generate combined annualized revenues of almost $1.5 billion, with most of their users based in the US. ReelShort CEO Joey Jia, who spoke on the first day in a session titled ‘Micro Dramas, Mega Economics’, has aggressively expanded into Thailand through a partnership with AIS and is now focusing on Japan and Korea. India has emerged as a new frontier: Couto says microdrama platforms have unlocked about $300 million in transactions in the country in the past six months, with an estimated annualized run rate of $800 million to $900 million.

Whether that trajectory will last is another question. “The jury is busy with a registration,” says Couto. “But how do you make it sustainable? What is the lifetime value of these users?” When it comes to generating revenue from advertising, he is more cautious: “The jury is out, to be honest.”

Uncertainty over monetization has not dampened investor appetite. As top Chinese microdrama players and their Indian counterparts look for new capital, Couto sees the category becoming a new magnet for investment – ​​albeit overshadowed by the looming ambitions of TikTok and Meta, both of which he says are entering the format “with intent and speed”. A special panel on day two, “Inside the Micro-Drama Pipeline,” will hear from Cassandra Yang of RJ RisingJoy and Dabin Chung of Bamboo Network on what the production stack looks like from the inside.

The wave of microdrama fits within a broader vertical video shift that has attracted publishers from the New York Times and CNN to Disney and Netflix. But Couto separates the format’s appeal to mass consumption from premium storytelling. Platforms in Asia, he notes, appear to be licensing content from Chinese microdrama companies’ US operations rather than their Chinese-origin catalogs – a signal, he suggests, of a difference in quality that matters to regional audiences.

On the sports front, APOS 2026 features ICC CEO Sanjog Gupta, La Liga president Javier Tebas and JioStar sports and live experiences chief Ishan Chatterjee, whose session is titled: “Sports as a Platform: Fandom, AI and the Commerce Layer.” Couto points to a data point from the most recent ICC cricket cycle that illustrates how the sport’s geography is changing: For the first time, meaningful demand emerged far beyond India. Japan ranked as a top-three market. Indonesia came in at number four. Thailand at number five.

“How do you make money with that?” Couto asks. “How do you leverage the fandom? And how do you develop new revenue streams around merchandising, ticketing, working with brands and advertisers – rather than just depending on these rights cycles and streaming platforms?”

The demand reflects broader pressure on rights holders to reduce their reliance on broadcast and streaming platforms as their sole source of revenue, and to build the kind of diversified fandom economy that Formula 1 is pioneering. A session with Copa90’s Tom Thirlwall explores what that model looks like in practice. Simon Robinson, president of Global Experiences and Worldwide Studio Operations at Warner Bros. Discovery, brings the experience economy into the conversation with a fireside event entitled ‘Beyond the Screen: The Business of Living the Story’.

If sports represents the opportunity for engagement, AI represents the efficiency and reinvention of play. Couto frames the central AI question not as tool adoption – “everyone is doing that,” he says – but as embedded intelligence: the difference between connecting AI to legacy systems and building organizations whose decisions, data and teams are structured around them. That thesis anchors the “Intelligent Enterprise” keynote from TWG Global’s Thomas Tull, and sets the stage for sessions with Google’s Jon Zepp alongside Andy Serkis and Kling AI’s Melody Hou, as well as a special panel on GenAI across the content pipeline with JioStar’s Stephan Bugaj and FBRC.ai’s Todd Terrazas.

Localization is an area where the impact is already measurable. When Netflix first expanded globally, localization in dozens of languages ​​was a significant expense. Those costs have fallen significantly, and microdrama platforms are the fastest adopters of AI-driven localization at scale. Streaming companies and broadcasters are now following suit.

The longer-term AI thesis, Couto argues, is about freeing up capital for content. He cites the example of ABS-CBN International, which has used AI not as a creative tool, but as a lever for technology and infrastructure – reducing operational costs by 50 to 60 percent and redirecting savings to investments in content. He similarly points to Australia’s Foxtel, which merged its engineering stack with DAZN after acquiring the broadcaster and is now focusing almost entirely on content.

“Netflix is ​​so successful in some ways because you have the freedom to invest and spend money on content,” says Couto. “Everyone should do that.”

For global investors trying to understand Asia, Couto identifies two persistent misconceptions that are slowly being corrected. The first is the undervaluation of local content – ​​not only as a catalyst for engagement, but also as a transaction driver. The expansion of Korean content is well documented; The reach of Chinese content in the region has grown dramatically over the past two years. That’s why at APOS, iQIYI and WeTV are focusing not only on their streaming platforms, but also on their studio and content licensing capabilities.

The second misconception concerns the pace of change. Couto points to Stage, the Indian dialect-focused streaming platform backed by Blume Ventures, which has grown to three million direct subscribers who pay for local and niche content. That growth has caught the attention of India’s top streamers. “You can’t wander around Asia,” he says. “Wandering around Asia was something you could do in the 90s and 2000s. Now it’s very different.”

Thai content will get its own special panel at APOS this year, including director Banjong Pisanthanakun and Deedee Pholthaweechai of TrueVisions NOW who explore why Thai stories are making the rounds. The Philippines and Indonesia have each also shown sessions, with Vidio – now profitable and, in Couto’s opinion, the leading local streaming platform in Indonesia by revenue – serving as a case study of how local content can increase subscription share in a competitive market.

The Korean content wave continues to reshape the region’s streaming map. Couto describes the impact of Korean content on Max’s growth in Southeast Asia and Taiwan as transformative, saying it is driving both viewership and subscriptions in those markets. James Gibbons, president of WBD APAC, will address the conference on the day-one panel “Asia’s Streaming Advantage: Growth, Profitability and What’s Next,” alongside Netflix’s Minyoung Kim, Prime Video’s Gaurav Gandhi and Disney’s Tony Zameczkowski.

The investor lens will have its own dedicated space on day one in a panel titled “Capital in the Age of AI: Where Investors Are Betting Across Sports, Streaming and Stories,” featuring Blume Ventures, Elysian Park Ventures, Asia Partners and VI Group.

Ask Couto which of the trends reshaping Asia’s media landscape will be most important in five years, and the answer is unequivocal. “It will definitely be AI,” he says. “It’s just the beginning.” But he’s precise about what that means. AI will not displace storytelling or IP, but will determine which companies have the structural freedom to compete for both. The companies that figure out how to integrate intelligence into their operations, reduce the legacy cost base and refocus resources on creative investments, he believes, are the ones that will still be standing when the redefinition of Asian media reaches the next phase.

APOS 2026 will take place from June 16 to 18 at The Mulia, Nusa Dua, Bali. Pre-conference activities on June 16 include an AVIA Policy Roundtable, an AVIA State of Piracy Roundtable and an invitation-only CEO Forum, with the main conference program beginning on June 17.