Claysol’s Thought Leader Series. This series aims to help better understand the latest technology trends by providing insights that will help business leaders understand emerging technologies, their applications, and how they could transform the future of business.
AI & ML TRANSFORMING THE OTT INDUSTRY
Artificial Intelligence excels where human effort is time-consuming and expensive. AI & ML technologies can detect information and sense meaningful patterns with minimal supervision and lightning speed.
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN THE OTT INDUSTRY
Technological capabilities are as important as the content itself for the OTT platforms in an increasingly saturated and highly competitive industry.
We’re in the midst of a streaming and broadcasting revolution, with an ever-increasing number and availability of over-the-top (OTT) platforms like Netflix, ZEE5, Hulu, Disney+ Hotstar, and Prime Video. Bolstered by consumer needs and preferences during the lockdowns., Their growth is not expected to lose steam any time soon. In fact, with data insights and technology investments, innovation is well underway, as each platform looks to gain a competitive edge.
Artificial intelligence and the OTT industry are an excellent match, as practically every workflow around OTT — from Content Production, Delivery, Compliance to QC — can be enhanced and accelerated with the use of machine-learning systems.
How will AI revolutionize OTT platforms?
As one of the most powerful technologies of the current times, artificial intelligence is finding new applications in OTT workflows. Some of the most significant areas AI innovation is set to transform the OTT experience are:
Content production
AI and ML make content production faster and a lot more efficient, reducing costs and time-to-market — essential in a world currently dominated by video consumption.
Every frame of every video in a platform’s content library contains metadata —including the emotional state of the scene and the type of their actions. AI technologies can quickly extract information from any content and generate detailed descriptions for each.
This wealth of well-arranged metadata from the content can be leveraged in several critical OTT workflows, such as content discovery, orchestration, and post-processing.
Imagine having the ability to generate highlights and trailers from available footage automatically.
An impressive and early example was delivered in 2016 when 20th Century Fox teamed up with a tech giant to produce the world’s first “cognitive movie trailer” for its horror flick ‘Morgan.’
This comprised training an AI using captivating moments from other horror movies and trailers to put together the new trailer in a way that most appeals to horror fans.
With some assistance, the AI engine completed this feat in just 24 hours — without AI assistance, producing a movie trailer usually takes between ten and 30 days.
The ability of AI and ML to discover, learn and adapt has advanced tremendously. AI can learn from error samples and speed up data processing to create new videos in real-time from content libraries, perfectly optimized for release on each different OTT or social media platform, without the need for any human assistance.
And it is all excellent news for audiences — since it will be simpler and faster for platforms to produce new content, enabling them to create more and richer content.
Content Delivery & Hyper-Personalization
One of the most powerful impacts of Artificial Intelligence on the OTT industry is the ability to tailor the service to every viewer’s individual choice and preferences to fuel hyper-personalized content consumption.
A deep analysis of the viewing habits, actions, and content preferences within a platform and the conditions in which they happen unfolds features such as user-driven content taxonomies and genre definitions, emotional journey prediction, semantics-driven recommendations, and more.
This personalized offering can be expanded to the scale of the entire audience at a relatively low cost and give OTT platforms a significant boost in terms of customer satisfaction, and significantly reduce the churn rate while increasing the ARPU -average revenue per user.
In the current times, as OTT platforms look at gaining competitive advantage in what has become an incredibly saturated market, AI and ML-based recommendation systems are not just additional features but an absolute necessity.
Unifying OTT platforms and Social Media
Another emerging and obvious way AI is changing the OTT game is by blending platforms. From Amazon to TikTok and Instagram to Disney, all types of social media and streaming platforms are patenting AI-based inventions. This implies we could be seeing the start of such platforms trying to combine applications and functionalities together.
Take YouTube, for example — it hasn’t just been a video viewing platform — instead, it combines video editing, social network, message board, and a lot more.
There are also new contestants to the OTT space, thanks to developments in AI-based technologies. New entrants are set to deliver “extraordinary Direct-to-Consumer fan experiences at scale,” offering integrated ability to produce video, stream video, and engage audiences.
It is not the only model that could possibly succeed with an integrated approach — visualize how audience from social media platforms, combined with the content production and streaming capabilities of OTT platforms, could change the game completely.
Automated Content Compliance and Quality Control now made possible
AI could form a base for adaptable quality control (QC) and compliance frameworks. And will automatically align your media content with multiple regulations, including technical content parameters, regional age-sensitive content restrictions, privacy violation legislations, and other rules.
An AI engine can quickly pick up on non-compliant elements (smoking, nudity, violence, triggering events), flag videos, and live streams with regulatory notices in record time. And append automated moderation to protect your audience and your brand.
Claysol supports the world’s leading Content Owners, Broadcasters, Stations, MVPDs, and OTT players to stay ahead of their competition. Claysol is a leader in Video Compression and Delivery Solutions with Market-Ready solutions that are cutting edge and integrate best-in-class features from our OEM partners who are at the forefront of innovation in the OTT Industry.
Claysol offers AI and analytics for next-generation OTT experiences.
powerful recommendation engine leverages the latest ML/AI techniques to generate personalized recommendations based on critical indicators identified throughout a viewer’s life cycle. Our rare combination of experience and depth of understanding makes us an ideal go-to technology partner.
While not complete in any way, these examples of AI & ML in the OTT Industry give you an understanding of what the technology can deliver today to make the operations of a large-scale OTT video platform more effective and profitable.
If you have any queries about AI & ML in the OTT industry and how it can help your OTT platform stand apart do write to me at psatish@claysol.com
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