Gracenote expands AI product roadmap with sports MCP server, entertainment SLM and agents

Planned solutions tackle accuracy, cost and latency barriers to deploying AI at scale across viewer experiences and media operations

NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 2026 — Gracenote, Nielsen’s content intelligence business, today unveiled the next phase of its AI product roadmap. Anchored by its Video Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, Gracenote plans to offer a dedicated Sports MCP Server, an entertainment-focused small language model (SLM) and task-oriented agents. Designed to be composable, the components can be used independently or combined for different use cases, reducing the need to build each AI implementation from scratch.

The expansion comes as companies across the media ecosystem increasingly adopt general-purpose large language models (LLMs) to improve viewer experiences, guide content decisions and streamline operations. Yet concerns about accuracy, response times and unpredictable costs continue to limit deployment at scale.

Gracenote’s June 2026 study quantifies the accuracy risk. Researchers evaluated the output of an LLM relying solely on its training knowledge for 2,600 popular movie and TV titles across 13 countries. For 506 titles — nearly one in five — the model fabricated information for every metadata attribute examined.

“AI adoption in media will be evolutionary. Its impact will be revolutionary,” said Jared Grusd, CEO of Gracenote. “Over the next few years, the industry will progress from optimizing established processes to solving challenges previously too difficult or costly to address — and ultimately to redesigning how programming is acquired, managed and delivered. Gracenote’s role is to provide the trusted content intelligence infrastructure that enables incremental advances to compound into industrywide transformation.”

Industry needs shaping the roadmap

Three priorities consistently raised in customer conversations — deeper audience engagement, sharper programming analysis and more efficient media operations — are guiding Gracenote’s product development across three layers of the AI stack:

• Domain-specific data access and prebuilt tools: Available today, the Video MCP Server connects customers’ preferred AI models to Gracenote’s source-verified metadata covering more than 55 million titles and continually updated viewing availability data. Gracenote’s global entertainment knowledge graph maps relationships among programs, cast and crew, while persistent, portable content IDs connect records across sources and services. The Sports MCP Server will broaden that foundation with data on live, upcoming and recent events, including schedules, scores, standings, statistics and where-to-watch information. Together, these solutions will power more reliable conversational search and personalized recommendations, helping audiences discover content, find games and get answers about their favorite teams and athletes.
• Specialized reasoning: Gracenote’s entertainment-focused SLM will bring domain-specific reasoning to high-volume workloads in which low latency and predictable costs are critical. Paired with Gracenote data and tools, potential applications include evaluating acquisition and licensing opportunities, identifying catalog gaps and analyzing availability windows.
• Task execution: Agent capabilities will combine AI models and Gracenote tools with customer-defined business logic and guardrails to automate discrete audience-facing and operational workflows. Potential applications include content identity resolution, catalog reconciliation, feed enrichment, image selection, schedule maintenance and availability updates. For example, a rights-monitoring agent could scan the open web for full episodes tied to a customer’s catalog, match them to Gracenote IDs and flag potential violations for legal review.

“Media companies cannot capture AI’s full value with a single assistant designed to do everything,” said Tyler Bell, senior vice president of AI products at Gracenote. “Search, catalog matching and schedule quality are fundamentally different problems, each with its own data, latency and oversight requirements. Putting AI into production requires clearly defined tasks, measurable outcomes and human checkpoints where they matter most. Gracenote’s established content foundation, deep media expertise and purpose-built tools uniquely position us to help our customers realize the transformational benefits of AI.”

Gracenote will showcase its Video MCP Server, offer an advance look at the Sports MCP Server and speak on the “Driving True Transformation vs Incremental Change with AI” panel at IBC2026, Sept. 11-14 at RAI Amsterdam. Learn more about Gracenote at IBC2026.

About Gracenote

Gracenote is the content intelligence business unit of Nielsen. We standardize the way the global media and entertainment ecosystem indexes content and associated metadata, allowing it to flow between creators, distributors, platforms and advertisers. By providing unmatched depth across 55M+ titles and 80K+ channels and catalogs, we power the modern search, discovery and navigation experiences that connect people to the TV, movies, music and sports they love — in 70+ languages across 80+ countries. For more information, visit Gracenote.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact

Mark Yamada
mark.yamada@nielsen.com