PubNub Illuminate Wins 2025 NAB Product of the Year Award in Streaming

PubNub is thrilled to announce that PubNub Illuminate for Sports, Media & Entertainment has been honored with the 2025 NAB Show Product of the Year Award in the Streaming category. This prestigious award, presented at the NAB Show (the premier media and entertainment technology event), is selected by a panel of industry experts across 16 categories. Earning this recognition – judged on innovation, feature set, cost efficiency, and performance in serving the media & entertainment industry – highlights PubNub’s commitment to transforming how audiences engage with live content in real time.

“We are incredibly honored to receive the NAB Show’s Streaming Product of the Year award for PubNub Illuminate,” said Todd Greene, CEO and Co-Founder of PubNub. “This recognition from one of the industry’s most influential events is a testament to our team’s innovation and the trust our customers place in PubNub. Our mission has always been to power immersive real-time experiences at massive scale, and Illuminate takes that to the next level – helping our customers turn live data into instant action that delights audiences and drives new revenue.”

PubNub Illuminate: Real-Time Decision Intelligence for Live Content

PubNub Illuminate is a groundbreaking real-time decisioning and analytics platform – what we call “True Adaptive Intelligence” – that empowers companies to observe audience behavior and respond with automated actions in the moment. It’s a low-code solution designed for product owners, technical producers, and monetization teams to optimize engagement and ROI on the fly. Instead of waiting for monthly reports or manual analysis, Illuminate users can make instant, data-driven decisions based on live inputs and trends In short, PubNub Illuminate gives teams unprecedented visibility into live events and the ability to act on insights in real time, without burdening engineering.

With PubNub Illuminate, streaming app teams can instantly:

1. Tailor strategies and run experiments on the fly – for example, launch targeted promotions or rewards during a live event to boost engagement
2. Dynamically insert ads or content based on real-time context, enabling more responsive and relevant monetization opportunities.
3. Link viewer behavior to incentives and outcomes, tying in-app actions (likes, shares, watch duration) to rewards or personalized content to encourage participation
4. Detect and act on suspicious or fraudulent activity in real time, strengthening trust and safety for live interactions
5. Send personalized recommendations instantly based on viewer actions as they happen – for instance, suggesting related content or merchandise when a user shows interest in a particular highlight

All of this is accomplished through a no-code, human-readable interface, so business and product teams can iterate quickly without heavy development cycles. Backed by PubNub’s globally distributed realtime network (the world’s largest Pub/Sub data network), Illuminate operates with the ultra-low latency and massive scalability our customers rely on. In practice, this means decisions and triggers happen within milliseconds, across millions of users, keeping audiences continuously engaged.

“Our goal with PubNub Illuminate was to make real-time decision intelligence accessible and actionable for every live content provider,” said Phani Pandrangi, VP of Product at PubNub. “Winning the NAB Product of the Year Award confirms that we’ve solved a critical need in the industry. We designed Illuminate so that teams can instantly react to audience behavior – whether that’s personalizing the viewer experience, optimizing content delivery, or maximizing monetization – all without months of development effort. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the media and entertainment community embrace this innovation, and we’re excited to continue redefining what’s possible for real-time engagement.”

Powering the Future of Sports, Media & Entertainment Experiences

The Sports, Media & Entertainment industry is undergoing a revolution in how it engages and monetizes audiences, and PubNub is at the forefront of this shift. Leading streaming platforms and event broadcasters use PubNub to deliver interactive features at a global scale, ensuring fans stay connected and immersed. For example, DAZN, the global sports streaming leader, leverages PubNub to power real-time chat and Watch Party experiences for over 10 million users, with sub-100ms latency delivering synchronized interactions worldwide. In 2022 alone, DAZN supported 130 million connected devices through PubNub’s infrastructure – a testament to the platform’s scalability. This kind of real-time interactivity creates a one-of-a-kind social experience where fans feel like they’re sitting together in a stadium, and it significantly increases the time users spend in the app. By keeping viewers engaged longer and more deeply, our customers can drive higher loyalty and monetization opportunities from their content.

PubNub Illuminate builds on this strong foundation by adding a new layer of intelligence and adaptability to live applications. Now, our customers in sports, streaming media, and live entertainment can not only deliver rich real-time features (like live chat, polls, Q&A, multi-screen watch parties, and interactive games) – they can also optimize those experiences in real time for maximum impact. With Illuminate, product managers and event producers can experiment with different engagement tactics or revenue strategies during a live broadcast and immediately see the results in audience behavior and revenue lift. No more guessing what might work best – they have the data and the tools to act on it instantly.

It’s no surprise, then, that over 2,000 companies – including industry leaders like DAZN, 17Live, LiveNation, NCAA, FanHub, and more – rely on PubNub for their real-time audience experiences. Whether it’s a major sports final streaming to millions of concurrent viewers, a live concert with interactive fan chats, or a global gaming tournament, PubNub’s platform ensures every message, reaction, and insight is delivered reliably in the blink of an eye. By uniting real-time action and historical insight, PubNub Illuminate is helping these innovators continuously adapt and improve their offerings to delight users and keep them coming back .

Building on an Award-Winning Vision

This NAB award is more than just a trophy – it’s validation of PubNub’s vision for the future of interactive media. We believe that audiences shouldn’t be passive; they should be active participants in the moment. PubNub Illuminate was born from that belief, giving our customers the power to create truly adaptive, interactive experiences that respond to their audiences’ needs and interests instantly. Being named Product of the Year in Streaming at NAB Show 2025 shows that our approach is resonating with the industry at large, and that PubNub is leading the way in solving the challenges of live event engagement at scale.

We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our customers, partners, and the PubNub team for making this achievement possible. Every feature we develop and every innovation we bring to market is driven by real-world needs from pioneers in streaming, sports, and entertainment. This award belongs to our community as much as it does to us.

As we celebrate this milestone, we remain as committed as ever to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with real-time technology. The future of media and entertainment is interactive, immersive, and instant, and PubNub will continue to deliver the platforms and tools to make that future a reality. Here’s to many more real-time, interactive moments ahead – and once again, thank you for believing in PubNub.

Congratulations to everyone involved in PubNub Illuminate’s success – let’s keep illuminating the path forward! 🎉