Five takeaways from TwitchCon Rotterdam 2026
TwitchCon Europe 2026 took place from 30–31 May at the Ahoy Convention Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, drawing 10,000 streamers and fans, and The Media Leader‘s French team was on the ground to cover the expo.
Over two days, Twitch and Amazon Ads unveiled a wave of product announcements, shared new advertising effectiveness data and opened their doors to brands.
Here are five takeaways from the event — the last in Rotterdam before TwitchCon moves to Berlin in 2027.
Authenticity is dead — long live ‘alive’ content
78% of Gen Z believe social media is fake, and 68% say they are drowning in AI-generated content.
That was the conclusion of a study commissioned by Twitch last November across panels in Europe, the US, Brazil and Japan.
What this generation now wants, Twitch leadership argued, is content that feels alive — surprising, deeply felt, participatory.
The study identified three qualities that define this kind of content: the ability to outsmart the algorithm (59% of respondents want content they can influence), shared creativity (63% want ads they can remix), and a bias towards action (87% do something after seeing an ad on Twitch).
For brands, the lesson is straightforward: scripted authenticity is less effective than unscripted live moments, even if live requires a higher risk tolerance.
Twitch is neither YouTube nor CTV — and the antidote to the scroll
Dan Clancy repeated a line throughout the weekend that neatly captures Twitch’s positioning: “social media has become antisocial.” Scrolling through your phone does not build connection.
Twitch, which Clancy describes as an “anti-swapping app”, is designed to make people stay — 48% of viewers spend more than three hours per session. The average session length on Twitch is 73 minutes. On TikTok, he said, it is 73 seconds.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy: Why brands should reach ‘entertainers who happen to game’
According to Digiday, Amazon late last year reportedly began positioning Twitch as part of its wider CTV ambitions, seeking to sell Twitch into the same pitch it uses to sell Prime Video and Fire TV.
Speaking to The Media Leader at TwitchCon Rotterdam, however, chief product officer Mike Minton described that Twitch’s primary focus is still currently on mobile users; nearly half of monthly users are phone-only, and three-quarters of new users first create accounts on mobile.
However, an announcement on Twitch’s CTV experience is expected at TwitchCon San Diego later this year, with Minton confirming second-screen developments are on the product roadmap.
Measurable advertising results across the full funnel
Twitch is moving beyond defensive positioning on measurement.
Livestream activation experiments show average uplifts of +20% in awareness, +16% in favourability and +14% in purchase intent. Added to a Prime Video campaign, Twitch delivers incremental reach of over 80% — its Gen Z and Millennial audience overlapping very little with other Amazon channels.
70% of Twitch’s audience says it has considered a product recommended by the livestreaming service. Core to the value proposition is that communities of Twitch users trust creators on the platform, and that this transfers to brands that integrate naturally into streams.
A new toolkit for creators and brands
Dan Clancy’s keynote was packed with announcements. The headline feature: Dual Format, which will allow creators to stream in horizontal and vertical simultaneously when it begins rolling out in June.
Another new feature, Stream Summaries, will automatically generate a synopsis of what has happened in a broadcast for viewers joining mid-stream.
Auto Clips, meanwhile, will capture the best moments of a live stream using chat activity, vocal inflection and on-screen events, with automatic captions launching next week.
And for creators in Eurozone markets, currency conversion fees on SEPA payouts will be eliminated this summer.
For brands, Twitch is formalising a three-tier approach: standard display and video formats for sustained, cost-efficient presence; premium formats such as the Headliner and channel sponsorships for key moments; and the Brand Partnership Studio for major launch activations — fully bespoke campaigns built around creators, chat mechanics and interactive experiences.
Berlin 2027 and a long-term European strategy
TwitchCon will leave Rotterdam next year for Berlin, on 22–23 May 2027. This is not a retreat from Benelux but a deliberate rotation strategy, Clancy explained in a press briefing, with the company wanting to become accessibility for communities across the continent in markets including Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Running beneath all of this is Twitch’s broader commercial ambition in Europe, embodied by the appointment of Virginie Douin as director of commercial, Europe — a newly created role — in the summer of 2025.
“It is a very strong signal of Amazon’s investment in Twitch,” she told The Media Leader during an interview at the expo.
“Twitch brings together three things that are becoming increasingly rare: attention, trust and participation,” she continued. “There’s a potential connection between viewers and creators, but also within the community. When brands manage to integrate themselves into this environment, they don’t disrupt the experience—they become part of it. And that translates into a greater business impact than other channels.”
This article was translated and adapted from an article originally published on The Media Leader France and written by editorial director François Quairel.