In short
- Agentic AI moved from demo to daily workflow at IBC2026.
- The industry named its shared standard: the Story Object Model (SOM).
- Cuez helped build SOM through the IBC Accelerator's Smart Stories project — IBC Accelerator Project of the Year.
- Cuez also launched Cuez Admin and expanded Rundown, Storydesk, Automator, Blockz, Browz and MOS Connector.
- CSI Magazine named Cuez Storydesk winner of Best Use of Agentic AI in Media.
- Cuez won TVBEurope Best of Show Awards at IBC2026
Agentic AI moved from demo to daily production at IBC2026
IBC2026 opened at RAI Amsterdam on 11 September, and AI was once again the loudest theme in the halls. This year, though, the tone had clearly shifted.
Instead of showing prototypes, vendors demonstrated agents that were already running in production, handling captions, compliance checks, archiving and publishing. The question was no longer whether AI could do the job, but how these agents would share what they know with each other.
The real gap is shared context, not more integrations
Every newsroom already runs dozens of connected systems, and APIs are everywhere, so integrations aren't the difficult part anymore. The trouble is that a connected system can still miss the point of what's actually happening in a story, because the connected tools still don't have a common context.
A graphics tool might not know the angle changed. A compliance system might still be working from an outdated wire. Each tool can be intelligent on its own. Yet together they can still work in the dark, and that gap was the real conversation running through IBC2026.
The Story Object Model (SOM) gives every tool the same story
This year, the industry gave its answer a name: the Story Object Model (SOM), an open standard that came out of this year's IBC Accelerator Incubator under the project name Smart Stories.
The problem it solves is a familiar one. A newsroom's rundown, its MAM, its graphics engine and its compliance tool each already hold a piece of the story, but none of them has the whole picture. When a producer changes an angle, or a duty editor puts a hold on a number, that decision still moves by phone, by chat, or by a word across the desk, and it rarely reaches every tool that needs it, and AI doesn't fix that gap. It just moves through it faster.
SOM changes that. Instead of one tool sending a command to another, the story itself now carries its own state: what's confirmed, what's on hold, what changed, and who decided, so that every connected tool reads that state and decides for itself what to do with it, and nothing sits above the others giving orders. That's the revolutionary part: not just another integration, but a shared source of truth that every system and every agent can trust.
MOS made the newsroom digital back in the 1990s by letting tools pass data between each other. SOM is built for the harder job of giving those tools shared meaning, not just shared data, while editors stay fully in control throughout. Every AI suggestion and every human approval lands on one shared, provable record.
Cuez helped write this standard through the IBC Accelerator's Smart Stories project, alongside a consortium of vendors, broadcasters, and industry innovators.
Champions: AP (Associated Press), Al Jazeera, Washington Post, BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Sky, EBU, NBC Universal, SMPTE, Reuters, ITN, Scripps, The Global Creative & Security Community
Participants: Shure, EVS, Cuez, Moments Lab, Perspective Media Group, Google Cloud, TRINT, Cognizant, Nuvelics, AWS, Octopus, The Weather Company, HyperContent AI, LiveU, Electric Sheep, Fonn Group
Cuez's history with the IBC Accelerator programme
This wasn't our first year in that room, since Cuez has stood in every IBC Accelerator since 2023.
It started with Gallery Agnostic Live Broadcasting in 2023, followed by Evolution of the Control Room and then AI Agent Assistants for Live Production, two of which were named Accelerator Project of the Year.
Building the standard, rather than just adopting it later, is where we choose to spend our time.
What Cuez brought to IBC2026
Our booth had good reason to be busy this year. We launched Cuez Admin, a shared layer for media groups running multiple stations, so teams can share automation presets, feeds and AI models while each station still keeps its own branding and permissions.
Rundown also got a real-time script editor, letting producers co-write inside the same item and insert blocks with slash commands instead of digging through menus. Storydesk now pulls in wires, inboxes and RSS feeds directly, and works with any AI model through MCP.
Blockz
Blockz brings no-code automation into any NRCS, including legacy systems like iNEWS and ENPS, so journalists can trigger studio automations straight from the rundown without disrupting their daily workflow.
Browz
Browz is Cuez's universal media browser. It lets users search, preview and drop assets from any MAM straight into the rundown, so nobody has to switch tabs or wait on a custom integration.
MOS Connector
MOS Connector keeps older, MOS-based newsroom systems in the loop, so broadcasters can bring legacy infrastructure into the Cuez ecosystem without ripping anything out.
Cuez Storydesk wins two industry awards at IBC2026
The show brought home two trophies. CSI Magazine named Cuez Storydesk winner of Best Use of Agentic AI in Media at the CSI Awards, held in Amsterdam on the night IBC2026 opened, and TVBEurope named Storydesk a winner in its Best of Show Awards for the show too.
Storydesk's agentic AI framework is built in rather than bolted on, and these awards are proof that the direction we picked years ago is the one the industry is now walking toward.
Rise Women in Broadcast was everywhere at IBC2026
It was great to see so many Rise initiatives around the show this year, with ribbons for Rise Mentor, Rise Mentee and other Rise support roles showing up on lanyards wherever we looked. We are proud to be part of it too, as we hosted the Happy Hour with Rise at our booth, bringing women of the industry together. Cuez has been an avid supporter of the Rise initiatives, with several Cuez team members completing the Rise Mentoring Program, as well as speaking at Rise events and conferences.
Thank you from the Cuez team to our partners and our customers
The technology mattered this week, but the people mattered more.
The Cuez team worked hard behind the scenes to make it all happen, our partners keep building and growing alongside us, and our customers trust us, challenge us and keep pushing this industry forward. That's what we're proudest of: the community around Cuez.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth, shared a conversation, gave us feedback, or simply said hello.
Missed us at IBC2026? Send us a message for a demo or a chat.
Ecaterina Caprari
Content Marketeer