Post Magazine

January 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 35 POST JANUARY 2018 OUTLOOK O OUTLOOK O OUTLOOK ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE H aving been a central theme in popular film and literature for decades, and a growing pres- ence in areas as disparate as gaming, medicine and law, artificial intelligence (AI) is not a new concept. What is new, though, is the application of AI to accelerate and enhance M&E work- flows. With development of media-fo- cused solutions ramping up quickly, AI is set to make a significant impact on the industry. Two thousand eighteen could be the year it takes off. STRENGTHS: AI dramatically reduces the time, work and cost involved in realizing the potential value of video and audio content. When integrated with a robust media asset management (MAM) solution, even the most basic AI processing can yield tremendous- ly useful insight. With the ability of cognitive engines to perform specific analytical tasks, such as transcription, facial recognition and object detection, AI enables the automated creation and enrichment of metadata for current and/or archived content. Supporting a growing arsenal of cognitive engines, AI empowers content owners to mine audio and video assets for descriptive metadata, logos, objects, faces and much more. With better insight into its media library, a company can dynamically relate advertisements or other targeted programs to the content of the pro- gram to boost viewer relevance, value and response. Even the consumer can benefit, as the extensive metadata col- lected through AI processing can deliv- er much deeper search capabilities. WEAKNESSES: AI-driven content analysis is often perceived as solely a cloud-based process. Newer technol- ogies, however, enable AI processing both on the ground and in the cloud, an ability that can negate the cost and security concerns connected with the once-requisite movement of content from behind the organization's own storage infrastructure and security firewall. Another perceived weakness is that AI cannot perform certain tasks accurately, such as identifying different people with similar features. But as the technology continues to mature, engines are only getting more accurate. We can expect that trend to accelerate. OPPORTUNITIES: For the media facility that produces hours of video each day, the cumulative store of content may simply be too large to be understood or known by a single person. Moreover, the process of tagging that content manually simply isn't economical — and perhaps not even possible, particularly given the ongoing growth of most dig- ital media libraries. AI allows a media company to apply intelligent tools to its library and, in turn, fully understand and monetize its digital media. The automated extraction of data intelligence — metadata — from stored digital content is also a huge cost-sav- er. With fast, convenient access to an unprecedented amount of information about the nature of its audio and video content, organizations can discover a wealth of timely and interesting mo- ments that can be extremely valuable, enabling the efficient creation of more compelling content, as well as more effective content monetization and more powerful demonstration of ROI to advertisers. THREATS: In some M&E sectors there persists a general misunderstanding of how metadata can benefit the workflow, and of the role AI can play in gaining intelligence about this data. It's easy to make assumptions about cost or com- plexity as new technologies emerge, and AI is as vulnerable to those kinds of as- sumptions as any other technology that has yet to become broadly deployed. OUTLOOK FOR 2018: AI's place in M&E workflows will become more solidified in 2018. Video is a nascent market for AI applications, and new uses for the technology will undoubtedly be discovered in the months and years ahead. Yet the benefits of leveraging AI are increasingly understood by companies across the industry, and hesitations about diving in are quickly evaporating. Given the dramatic results that even simple analysis can yield, it's clear to a growing number of media companies that AI-powered cognitive engines will be a game-changer.. AI APPLICATIONS FOR M&E WORKFLOWS BY KEITH LISSAK SENIOR DIRECTOR, MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT SOLUTIONS MARKETING QUANTUM SAN JOSE, CA QUANTUM.COM MORE OUTLOOK 2018 ONLINE For more bylined contributions from creatives and industry leaders, including Bang Zoom Studios, Two Point 0, Fortium, WCP Media, Conductor, Opaque Studios, OptiTrack, Thinkbox, Unreal Engine, NIM Labs, VFX Legion and Cospective, visit us online at postmagazine.com.

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