The New Growth Playbook: Activate Consulting’s 2026 Tech & Media Outlook
Summary
The global internet, media, and technology industries are entering a new era—one that will unlock more than $1.3 trillion in incremental revenue by 2029. But as silos disappear and competition intensifies, the rules of growth are being rewritten. In this session, Michael J. Wolf, Founder and CEO of Activate Consulting, presents the firm’s 2026 Tech & Media Outlook, revealing how leading companies must rethink strategy, product, and consumer engagement to stay ahead. Learn which trends will define the next phase of the digital economy—and why winning in 2026 will depend on owning attention across every moment of the consumer’s day.
- Format: Presentation
- Category: Presentation
- Event Type: panel
- Presented By: n/a
Contributors
- Michael J. Wolf
Raw Event JSON
Large nested arrays are compacted for page readability. Full payload remains in dataset files.
Open JSON payload
{
"id": "PP1150573",
"track": "Tech & AI",
"focus_area": null,
"category": "Presentation",
"event_id": "PP1150573",
"event_type": "panel",
"format": "Presentation",
"genre": null,
"subgenre": null,
"name": "The New Growth Playbook: Activate Consulting’s 2026 Tech & Media Outlook",
"presented_by": null,
"publish_at": "2026-02-04T10:00:00.000-06:00",
"reservable": true,
"reservable_id": "PP1150573",
"reserved": false,
"date": "2026-03-15",
"end_time": "2026-03-15T17:00:00.000-05:00",
"start_time": "2026-03-15T16:00:00.000-05:00",
"message": null,
"image": null,
"credentials": [
{
"name": "Platinum Badge",
"type": "platinum"
},
{
"name": "Innovation Badge",
"type": "innovation"
}
],
"contributors": [
{
"id": 89820,
"company": "Activate Consulting",
"credential_types": [
"innovation"
],
"entity_id": 2252328,
"name": "Michael J. Wolf",
"speaker_types": [],
"title": "Founder and CEO",
"image": {
"alt_text": "Michael J. Wolf",
"credit": null,
"url": "https://images.sxsw.com/bdVZj6cYN6FTOD-UMHSBBdIj0rM=/9x0:1475x1466/600x600/images.sxsw.com/48/e4fac381-b87a-4c33-87c7-51a3ae151426/pcid-1638184"
},
"speaker_type": "Speaker",
"details": "Michael J. Wolf is the founder and CEO of Activate Consulting, the leading management consulting firm for technology, internet, media, entertainment, and sports businesses.\r\rActivate advises on strategy, operations, organization, programming, and M&A decisions while helping companies build new technology-enabled businesses. His clients have included the world's most important names in tech, media, and telecom. Activate has been central to the major innovations and corporate realignments across these sectors. \r\rMr. Wolf is a strategist who helps companies improve their performance, drive revenue growth, and create strategies to own their future in a dynamic technology, internet, and media ecosystem.\r\rActivate has brought their deep industry knowledge and business experience to their annual report -- The Activate Technology & Media Outlook -- for ten years. The report is released every year at the Wall Street Journal's Tech Live Conference. The Outlook serves as a benchmark for industry forecasts and mission critical reference for techs top executives.\r\rPreviously, Mr. Wolf was president and chief operating officer of MTV Networks (now Paramount Media Networks). Prior to MTVN, he was global managing partner of McKinsey & Company’s TMT practice. He joined McKinsey as the firm’s first direct-elect senior partner after leading Booz Allen Hamilton’s global communications, media, and technology group.\r \rWolf has served on the publicly traded boards of Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ), Sotheby’s (NYSE), and Entercom Communications (NYSE). He currently serves as the independent director on the board of privately held Sandbox Technologies (AI and quantum technology), a spinoff from Google.\rHe is a graduate of Columbia University and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.",
"links": {},
"type": "person"
}
],
"venue": {
"accessible": false,
"age_policy": null,
"floor": "3",
"id": "V1349",
"indoor_outdoor": null,
"name": "Salon AB",
"parent_id": "V0403",
"parent_venue_name": "JW Marriott",
"venue_entry_info": null,
"formats": null,
"location": {
"address": "110 E 2nd St.",
"lat_lon": [
30.2645713,
-97.743198
],
"city": "Austin",
"postal_code": "78701",
"state": "TX",
"name": "JW Marriott"
},
"root": {
"accessible": null,
"age_policy": null,
"floor": null,
"id": "V0403",
"indoor_outdoor": null,
"name": "JW Marriott",
"parent_id": null,
"parent_venue_name": null,
"venue_entry_info": null,
"formats": null
},
"events": "[omitted 5 venue events]"
},
"description": "The global internet, media, and technology industries are entering a new era—one that will unlock more than $1.3 trillion in incremental revenue by 2029. But as silos disappear and competition intensifies, the rules of growth are being rewritten. In this session, Michael J. Wolf, Founder and CEO of Activate Consulting, presents the firm’s 2026 Tech & Media Outlook, revealing how leading companies must rethink strategy, product, and consumer engagement to stay ahead. Learn which trends will define the next phase of the digital economy—and why winning in 2026 will depend on owning attention across every moment of the consumer’s day.",
"experience_level": "Beginner",
"accessibility": [],
"accessible_venue": false,
"add_bcl_url": false,
"add_slido": false,
"age_policy": null,
"american_sign_language": false,
"apple_url": null,
"audio_description": false,
"caption_url": null,
"closed_captioned": false,
"cpe_credit": false,
"has_subtitles": false,
"hash_tags": [],
"high_sensory_experience": false,
"live": false,
"long_description": "The global internet, media, and technology industries are entering a new era—one that will unlock more than $1.3 trillion in incremental revenue by 2029. But as silos disappear and competition intensifies, the rules of growth are being rewritten. In this session, Michael J. Wolf, Founder and CEO of Activate Consulting, presents the firm’s 2026 Tech & Media Outlook, revealing how leading companies must rethink strategy, product, and consumer engagement to stay ahead. Learn which trends will define the next phase of the digital economy—and why winning in 2026 will depend on owning attention across every moment of the consumer’s day.",
"meeting_url": null,
"meeting_url_live": false,
"mentorly_url": null,
"mobile_audio_url": null,
"open_captioned": false,
"playlist_tag": null,
"rebroadcast": false,
"recommended_ids": [],
"search_conversions": null,
"short_program": false,
"slido_url": null,
"sort": "NEW GROWTH PLAYBOOK: ACTIVATE CONSULTING?S 2026 TECH & MEDIA OUTLOOK",
"source": "Official",
"squad_up_url": null,
"stream_embed": null,
"stream_id": null,
"stream_url": null,
"strobe_warning": false,
"subdiscipline": null,
"summit": null,
"summit_display_name": null,
"tags": [
{
"id": 1343,
"name": "Technology",
"created_at": "2017-10-11T17:42:23.253-05:00",
"updated_at": "2024-09-13T07:02:24.613-05:00",
"sort": "TECHNOLOGY",
"alpha": "T"
},
{
"id": 1998,
"name": "Marketing",
"created_at": "2018-01-31T12:12:00.721-06:00",
"updated_at": "2024-01-31T13:51:56.687-06:00",
"sort": "MARKETING",
"alpha": "M"
},
{
"id": 2422,
"name": "Trends",
"created_at": "2023-03-05T18:53:22.637-06:00",
"updated_at": "2023-03-05T18:53:22.637-06:00",
"sort": "TRENDS",
"alpha": "T"
}
],
"talent_attending": null,
"title_only": false,
"track_display_name": "Tech & AI track sponsored by IBM",
"trailer_id": null,
"trailer_url": null,
"video_on_demand": null,
"vimeo_id": null,
"vod": false,
"xr_project_type": null,
"youtube_id": null,
"related_sales_client": null
}