Key Takeaways
- Netflix's Chief Product and Technology Officer, Elizabeth Stone, believes entertainment is rapidly diversifying beyond traditional film and TV into formats like mobile and cloud games, live content, and podcasts.
- The future demands entertainment that is highly personalized, immersive, and interactive, letting consumers explore worlds in varied directions based on their moment-to-moment desires.
- AI's role in this future is not to replace human creators but to act as an enabler, amplifying storytelling by helping creators bring their visions to life.
- Even with AI's rise, Stone insists that humans remain the core of narrative creation, viewing human storytelling skill as scarce and valuable.
Entertainment Is No Longer a Single Format
Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s CPTO, has a clear message for anyone building a consumer product: your offering won't stay static. What we call “entertainment” is already breaking free from its traditional boxes. Stone notes that consumers now expect a vast range of options, far beyond just movies and TV shows. Netflix is responding by expanding into mobile and cloud games, live content, and even podcasts.
“Entertainment is not going to be one thing in the future and it's already not one thing now,” Stone says. This isn't just about adding new categories; it's a recognition that people seek different experiences across various devices and moments of their day. Your customers aren't just using your product in one way, at one time. They're looking for an experience that adapts.
The Personalized, Immersive World
As formats multiply, the challenge for companies like Netflix shifts to making discovery and engagement easy. Stone pictures a future where entertainment is less a linear consumption and more an interactive world. It needs to be “more personalized, more immersive, more interactive with this sense of this is a world that I can explore in lots of different directions depending on what I'm looking for in the moment.”
This means a fundamental shift in how products are designed. It's not just about recommending the next movie; it's about guiding a user through an evolving, multi-faceted experience that feels tailor-made. The user isn't just a viewer; they're an explorer with agency, navigating a catalog that grows more complex by the day.
AI Amplifies, Humans Still Create
Hollywood has had its share of unease about AI, but Stone paints a clear picture of its place at Netflix. She sees AI not as a replacement for human talent, but as a powerful tool for creators. “Netflix's role in this is to enable creators with whatever tools they want to use to bring their vision to life,” she explains. The goal isn't AI-generated stories, but AI-assisted ones.
Stone emphasizes that human creativity remains the backbone. “I have a hard time picturing entertainment that doesn't have humans at the heart of it,” she says. AI might help a production look a certain way or streamline aspects of creation, but the core narrative, the initial spark, must come from a human. “Humans in the creation of the storytelling... is a scarce and valuable skill.” For founders, this means AI is a co-pilot, not an auto-pilot, for your creative or content teams.
What to Do With This
Take a hard look at your product today. Map out your customer’s “usage moments” beyond your core offering—are they commuting, waiting in line, or winding down? How could your product expand into adjacent formats (e.g., audio, short-form interactive) to meet those varied demands this quarter? Then, identify one repetitive creative or content task your team struggles with, and pilot an AI tool that assists your human creators to do it better and faster, rather than trying to replace them.