Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1513434
o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 3 c g w 2 1 OUTLOOK AI in Media & Entertainment Workflows BY MATT ALLARD DELL TECHNOLOGIES: DIRECTOR OF ALLIANCES & SOLUTIONS T oday we're seeing an acceleration of AI advancements, par- ticularly generative AI, and its potential to revolutionize media and entertainment (M&E) workows. We see AI impacting every area, from planning and pre-production, to post produc- tion, distribution, and even audience engagement. AI-driven visualizations let artists and directors plan shots quickly and eciently. AI can help editors streamline post production by au- tomating tasks like video trimming, scene detection, and color grad- ing. Generative AI-powered search and indexing tools can enhance content discoverability and audience engagement. Our soware and solution partners have been thoroughly integrating AI-backed features into their applications. These include industry leaders like Adobe, Autodesk, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Foundry, and Maxon. These features do what AI does best—simplify redundant tasks, pro- vide more insights about your content, and make previously-com- plex procedures more accessible. In some cases, these AI features are processed in the cloud. Oth- ers can be processed locally using the integrated AI functionality of modern GPUs, like Nvidia's RTX line — featured in Dell Precision workstations, recommended for M&E professionals. Soware pro- viders recognize the value of local processing for minimizing latency with the larger data sizes of video and audio les, and osetting the considerable costs of operating these features in the cloud. Cloud operating costs for soware vendors are so substantial that they are moving to put some of these features "on the meter" for end users. As customers come to use and depend on these inno- vative and impressive capabilities, it will not be surprising if they ask for more local processing to minimize their costs. Some may request this simply because they do not want any part of their video or audio data leaving the safety of their company rewall. Along with the rapid expansion of generative AI in our industry, there are concerns about privacy, intellectual property protection, safety, and governance, particularly with public cloud-based gen- erative AI models. Industry leaders in the market, including Dell, are quickly committing to responsible AI approaches that aim to protect customers' privacy and content. But as the regulatory and gover- nance standards for responsible AI emerge, our leading customers have recognized an approach to leverage the benets of generative AI while reducing their concerns. Public and open-source generative AI large language models (LLMs) such as Stable Diusion and Meta's Llama 2 can be operat- ed and ne-tuned privately for specic tasks, and operated entirely behind the rewall. This does not necessarily mean huge racks of GPU-powered servers that are oen associated with generative AI. It can also include workstations that have the GPU power to handle these LLMs. They leverage techniques like LoRA [low-rank adapta- tion of large language models] and RAG [retrieval-augmented gen- eration], which are eective at reducing the computational weight of LLMs without dramatically compromising their accuracy. While LLMs may be more suitable in the near term for larger me- dia enterprises because it can scale eectively on smaller machines, Dell can meet customers wherever they are in their AI journey. Cus- tomers can choose to use their favorite apps with innovative new AI features, or scale their business transformation with full-scale AI deployments with the condence that they are in control of their content. AI is bringing rapid and exciting innovations to the market, and while caution is merited, everyone should be exploring the op- portunities to use AI to transform the way they do business.