by
Viroopax Mirji
Associate Vice President, Communications, Cable, Media & Entertainment Industry, Infosys

AI/Automation

Navigating Media Workflows Smartly: Importance of Intelligent Media Platforms

Hollywood films are one of the most popular choice of entertainment across the world. In the not so distant past, viewers outside the US had to wait for months to see the new blockbusters in their local theaters. Additionally, non-English speaking movie goers could not enjoy the shows because content was not dubbed or subtitled in the local languages. In contrast, today we have releases on the same day and date, spanning across geographies and available in more than 50 local languages, not just in movie theaters but on several new digital channels like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc.

The Changing Media Landscape

Content anywhere and at any time is the new normal. This means creating a new format for every distribution channel and plethora of devices used to consume that asset. With the exponential increase in content production and increased focus on personalization and localization, the huge amount of content in the supply chain has challenged the current media processes and systems.

The presence of multiple stakeholders and disparate technologies in the media production and distribution network adds further difficulties. The current landscape is mainly composed of small niche players, providing focused solutions in the supply chain that covers both technology as well as services.

There is a need for intelligent content management, automated workflows and synchronization between different players in the ecosystem.

Today, content creators are engaging directly with end customers (D2C). Most studios are building their own Over-the-Top (OTT) services to provide engaging customer interaction, by delivering context specific and targeted content, merchandize and relevant ads. Since monetization of customer preferences and sticky experiences is a new and compelling focus, there is tremendous emphasis on providing immersive user experiences to promote engagement with the content and brands.

There is a need to capture, analyze and monetize data about the end customer and convert them into fans.

An Intelligent Media Platform for Smart Digital Workflows

Given the federated nature of the content processing ecosystem the current time from script to screen for global content releases in local languages is several months. Intelligent systems that can identify the changes in content between different takes and automate the localization via machine learning algorithms can be a huge enabler. Such intelligent orchestration platforms also link all the players from content production to distribution and hence provide a platform where content can be produced or reused efficiently (reducing overall costs) and monetized optimally (subscriptions, contextual advertising, automatic ad insertions etc.). This could make content releases on a global scale possible within few weeks of production.

An intelligent platform can provide a fabric of automation across all the media workflows with the power of AI and machine learning and enable content creators/distributors to adapt to voluminous increases in content while driving efficiencies and lowering costs.

Some key capabilities of include an integrated solution include:

  • Orchestrate different standalone technologies
  • Consolidate/integrate various services providers
  • Streamline production processes to enable “Day & Date” global release of localized content
  • Provide the ability to capture and monetize information about end customers
  • Allow for greater visibility into revenue streams, including subscriptions, merchandize, complementary services, and ad monetization
  • Facilitate tracking of digital assets across the supply chain and reconciliations of participations and royalties via blockchain technologies

The Customer Centric Cognitive Future, Leading with Voice

The media industry is driving towards cognitive learning to understand, formulate, and monetize not just customer actions but also perceptions and motivations, the first step to providing a more “human like” experience is the evolution of touch enabled text and graphical interfaces used by customers to more Natural Language Processing (NLP) powered voice interfaces. The furious transition from graphical user interfaces to voice enabled assistants and the intelligence from machine learning and AI engines are presenting customers with more personalized, relevant, and contextualized results when they search within the content. Data about customer traits can be used to target them with relevant/related merchandize and ads. Voice activation in the media supply chain supports good customer engagement due to ease of use and preferential results, enables AI enabled smart workflows and reduces production budgets by enabling reuse of content.

Many new technologies are working towards automating the generation of metadata from content to provide the foundational structure to activate voice and other advanced cognitive interfaces. Much work is being done in the field of Ontology, of understanding relationships and contexts between objects, humans, locations, etc. within the timeline of the content to present smart responses to customer requests or queries.

In summary, an intelligently woven technology framework uses voice activated smart workflows based on Media Ontologies and incorporates machine learning/AI to automate workflows across different tools used in the M&E space and hence provides the following benefits.

  • Digital Engagement and Insights
  • Intelligent Media Operations
  • Business Eco-System Collaboration
  • Efficient, Economical Media Engineering and IT