TRO | Rise of Gen AI is the driving force behind Warner Bros sale to Netflix

Your Meliora briefing on how GenAI and Creativity are unlocking a brighter, smarter future.

Author

Meliora Company
December 08, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Subscribe | 8th December, 2025

In this fast-moving GenAI economy, headlines are everywhere but optimism is rare.

Here’s our take on 3 stories that will help you be relentlessly optimistic about the future.

1. Rise of Gen AI enabled UGC could be the disruptive driving force behind Warner Bros sale to Netflix.

This week, the acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery by Netflix has taken over international headlines. In one of the biggest media deals in years, Netflix is making an investment of around US$82.7, which closes out months of negotiations and rival bids from Comcast and Paramount Skydance.

Here’s why this matters: Aside from our long-held viewpoint on the importance of consolidation as a solution to subscription fatigue and customer centred experiences, we’re really focussed on the unspoken driving force behind this sale - Gen AI. In this conversation with Mediaweek Australia, Meliora International Managing Partner Clive Dickens shares his views on why Gen AI enabled UGC is a disruptor for the changing consumption of ‘media’.

“This is why the Netflix deal is also due to the impact of AI and the time we’re all spending on it,” Dickens said, whether that is “generating songs, generating videos, looking for recipes, or chatting with our chatbots”. Read the full article here.

2. Amazon’s Nova Forge allows organisations to build their own frontier Gen AI models.

Amazon has launched Nova Forge, a platform that lets companies build their own frontier-class models using Amazon’s Nova systems. Instead of relying solely on off-the-shelf AI, enterprises can now train models at serious scale using their own data, domain knowledge and safety requirements — all inside AWS.

Here’s why this matters: AI is moving from something organisations use to something they can shape. Nova Forge lets companies build models that reflect their language, their risk settings and their way of working — without needing a research lab to do it. It’s a powerful shift: frontier intelligence becomes a foundation layer any enterprise can own, tune and deploy. The companies that embrace this will stop bolting AI onto workflows and start building AI into the centre of how they operate.

3. Anthropic is preparing for an IPO as early as 2026.

Anthropic, the giant behind the GenAI LLM Claude, Claude Code and Claude Skills has reportedly hired lawyers as it prepares to IPO - a move that could come as early as 2026. The company is also reportedly looking to raise a funding round that could value it at over $300 billion and has also been in talks with investment banks. Anthropic last announced a $13 billion raise in September, giving it a $183 billion valuation.

Here’s why this matters: If (or when) Anthropic decides to go public, it’s likely to be one of the largest IPO’s ever. There has also been rumblings that Open AI, who recently were valued at US$500b, are also working toward an IPO - although we don’t have any suggested dates here yet.

Still Curious?

Our Pursuit Of Better

Big news in the Meliora office this week - as early adopters of Limitless.ai as wearable tech (we’ve been using the device for in-person meetings and voice note transcription for over a year) we were excited to hear that the company is hot property. This week, it was announced that Limitless was being acquired by Meta as part of its continued foray into Gen AI enabled wearable technology. Whilst the financial terms of the deal are not disclosed, Limitless has raised over US$33m and has been backed by investors including Sam Altman.

Data intelligence and analytics company Databricks is reportedly set to raise US$5B on a US$134B valuation. The valuation of the round is roughly 32 x the company's expected sales next year, according to Reuters. Databricks offers a platform for enterprise AI and machine learning in addition to their lakehouse data architecture.

It’s not the first time we’ve spoken about Gen AI music platform Suno, but they’re back on our radar this week for good reason. They’re making headlines after their investor pitch deck for their most recent fundraise noted that the Gen AI startup produces an entire Spotify catalog worth of music every two weeks.

The Story of Radio Player

In the early 2000s, the UK radio industry faced an existential threat: streaming was changing everything, and radio risked being left behind.

The problem was clear. But the solution required something unprecedented: getting one of the most competitive industries in the world to work together. With thanks to our Strategic Partner 18Sixty, this week we bring you The Story of Radio Player.

Strategic Partner Spotlight

18Sixty is a full service podcast agency that designs, produces, distributes and promotes branded shows from brief to ideas to production to promotion, combining deep audio craft with audience growth expertise to create podcasts people actually want to hear.

tbi Media is a multi award-winning creative content agency delivering exceptional live events and audio/visual content to the biggest global brands and leading broadcast and media companies around the world.

The Pursuit of Better, Together

If this week’s newsletter sparked something, pass it on to a colleague. The best conversations often start with “You’ve got to read this”.