The media landscape today is dominated by short forms – tiktoks, reels and shorts (short videos on YouTube). We consume this content en masse and in a hurry. Data from 2025 shows hundreds of billions of Reels views per month and TikTok's growing share of audience engagement, while on YouTube, interactions with long-form content are decreasing in many segments.
Short formats are no longer a trend, but a standard for distributing de facto any ideas. If the once most effective 18-minute story (TED format) is to spread around the world again, TED needs to condense it to 90-120 seconds. Even tech brands and streaming platforms are considering the short video offensive because the attention has shifted to younger viewers.
Check also: Google is taking away clicks from e-commerce stores in Poland. Revenues are falling, marketing costs are rising
TED has a lot of work to do
The latest Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that broad audiences assume that leaders (political, business, media) are misleading them. At the same time, it is business that is expected to be most effective, and topics such as disinformation or climate change have become a litmus test of credibility.
For TED, which built its position on “ideas worth spreading”, this means the need to demonstrate new standards of transparency, fact-checking methods and resistance to false AI content – and Today we have a flood of synthetic content and deepfakes that constantly pollute the Internet. Even international institutions and courts today warn against the escalating harm caused by generative video and audio.
Another piece of the TED puzzle is money and community. On the one hand, the live events market has recovered after the pandemic and companies are increasing their budgets, e.g. for conferences, and organizers are reporting good attendance forecasts. This is a plus for a flagship, expensive event, such as TED in Vancouver. On the other hand, philanthropy is becoming more capricious and politically charged, as seen in decisions by large foundations to limit grants in selected countries or areas of ideological disputes. TED has an advantage here in the form of the Audacious Project, a platform that in record years has mobilized over a billion dollars for specific social projects, but to maintain the momentum, it will have to constantly expand the circle of donors and show the tangible impact of funded ideas.
All this happens with a parallel transformation of distribution channels. The core, the full talks on TED.com and YouTube, still carries the brandbut the dynamics grows where short cuts and micro-lessons appear. The official TED and TEDx channels still have a huge scale of subscribers and publications, but their growth is flatter today than a decade ago, and countless “edutainment” creators (according to the principle: teach by having fun) are competing for attention. At the same time, TED itself is already present on TikTok with an audience of millions. This is a sign that the organization understands the need to translate its formats.
The TED challenge can be boiled down to two points. First: regain the luster by staying true to the long form and quality of the argument. And secondly: at the same time, win in a world that consumes knowledge in two minutes and in which recipients trust authorities and organizations less.
See also: From monitoring to autonomous intelligence. This is how Dynatrace changes the understanding of business [WYWIAD]
This is how you can answer it
TED must and intends to take short form video seriously. What does this mean in practice? These are not trailers for long speeches, but independent, logically closed micro-theses prepared as a separate format: 60-120-second versions of speeches in which speakers build a punch line from the beginning and leave a single, easy-to-verify number, definition or conclusion.
Along with this, TED could use consistent source annotations and permanent “buttons” to delve deeper into a topic, including links to the full talk, article version, and source materials. Short video market research shows that such formats have potential, but they require perfect editing, a clear starting point and immediate benefit to the viewer.
The trust layer is another issue and this should be built into the product. This means pre-fact-checking and post-fact-checking with corrections directly on the pages with the speeches, as well as appropriate signing of content with metadata of origin and authenticity and pilots with marking/watermarking technologies and attestation standards (C2PA) that are recommended by international organizations today. TED can become a model for responsible knowledge distribution in the era of synthetic media – and this will be a real competitive advantage.
TED also counts on the “Khan effect” in adult education. Sal Khan has been building AI-powered tools (Khanmigo) for years that they lead the student to the answer instead of giving it. For TED, this is an opportunity to turn speeches into micro-learning paths, from a 2-minute clip, through a 10-minute presentation, to an interactive module with questions and an implementation task. A joint TED-Ed/Khan Academy ecosystem could finally create the final product that it is there would be learning with measurable results, not just inspiration.
The organization also hopes to develop revenue lines that do not dilute the mission. The B2B segment – TED@Work and training with TED coaches – already exists and fits the time when companies are increasing investments in live meetings and the development of communication skills. This is a natural place to scale. Certified programs for leaders, closed thematic paths (AI, climate, mental health), as well as inside-out activities, i.e. employee speeches prepared in the TED standard for internal communication. All of this should be more important to the organization.
Check also: “Critterz” created mainly using OpenAI technology. A new reality for animated film creators
TED can also act as a repository of solutions. That is, not just the speech, but a package consisting of the speech, operational plan, related community and financing mechanism. The Audacious Project showed that such a model works. TED may become a dinosaur and lose its relevance, but it doesn't have to. From the recipient's perspective, what is important today is less “where they will see something” and more “if they can trust what they see within 90 seconds.” If TED makes short clips an introduction to verifiable knowledge again, it will regain its shine not because it returns to 2015, but because it learns to speak the language of 2025.
The changing of the guard gives you the tools to do this. It now has a charismatic educator with an AI background, an experienced CEO who knows the mechanics of influence, a brand creator who is still active behind the scenes, and an events market that wants to implement live projects again. The rest is the courage to shorten the form, but without shortening the thinking.
Author: Grzegorz Kubera, journalist of Business Insider Polska
