NAB Show 2025 Preview – Professional Essentials Guide

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Sayama, deputy vice president of imaging

solutions at Sony Electronics. “New appli-

cations of AI and AI-powered automation

technologies are streamlining live produc-

tion workflows, with AI applications includ-

ing video capture, content and workflow

management, even background content

creation for virtual production.”

These advantages extend across the

content lifecycle, from production to distri-

bution.

“We’re closely watching how AI is re-

shaping every stage of content production

and delivery,” said Chris Wilson, head of

marketing at Mediakind. “From AI-pow-

ered video compression to automated

content tagging and hyper-personalized

recommendations, this shift is happening

rapidly.”

“As network demands increase due to

higher content consumption, streaming

services, 5G expansion and cloud-based

operations will likely start incorporating AI

to maintain efficiency, reliability and scal-

ability,” said Adi Rozenberg, RIST director

and CEO/CTO co-founder at Alvalinks.

The technology offers predictive capabil-

ities that improve reliability.

“One area where we are adding AI here

at Alvalinks is for proactive observability

to gain better visibility on the delivery net-

work,” Rozenberg said. “Combining existing

solutions with AI is providing faster access

to knowledge and insights on the nature of

the problem and how to overcome it.”

Transforming content discovery

and management

Media asset management is a beneficiary

of AI implementation, with new capabilities

in how organizations interact with their

content libraries.

“We believe AI-driven video discovery

will be at the forefront of the conversations

on media production efficiency and work-

flow at the 2025 NAB Show,” said Frederic

Petipont, CTO and co-founder of Moments

Lab. “Many of Moments Lab’s clients often

share their frustration and struggles with

complex DAM and MAM systems, which

limit their ability to quickly locate and use

content. By using AI video indexing, me-

dia professionals can leverage natural lan-

guage queries to search vast video libraries

seamlessly.”

This capability unlocks previously un-

tapped value in media archives.

“While the media and entertainment in-

dustry has established methods for produc-

tion and post production, AI-powered fea-

tures and tools that can enhance employee

productivity and unlock new opportunities

are hard to ignore,” said Ian McPherson,

global M&E business development – media

supply chain and generative AI at Amazon

Web Services.

“For example, vector embedding and im-

age composition understanding can drasti-

cally improve asset searchability. With the

right tools, editors and producers could

query vast archives through semantic

search and receive precise results,” added

McPherson.

Engagement and retention

AI is also helping media companies build

stronger relationships with their audiences

through personalization, improved user ex-

periences and enhanced accessibility.

“Not so long ago, it was difficult for small-

er streaming services to combat churn and

ensure stable service quality as successful-

ly as the big players with their vast in-house

teams of data scientists and engineers,”

said Mrugesh Desai, vice president North

America at Accedo. “The democratization

of AI has in a sense levelled out the play-

ing field. With the help of new tools and the

right analytics strategy, any streaming ser-

vice can now easily leverage data to boost

user engagement and retention and stabi-

lize service quality.”

These capabilities allow media compa-

nies to take a more proactive approach to

audience development and monetization.

“AI-driven insights are enabling OTT ser-

vices to identify users at high risk of churn

so that action can be taken - such as offer-

ing free access to premium content or a dis-

counted subscription fee to encourage the

user to stay,” Desai added.

The technology is also making content

more accessible to diverse global audienc-

es.

“AI and ML are revolutionizing personal-

ization and accessibility, improving local-

ization, multilingual support, automated

transcription, and audio description,” said

Anupama Anantharaman, vice president

of product management at Interra Sys-

tems. “The technology is rapidly advancing

and enabling media companies to deliver

higher-quality content across multiple plat-

forms – crucial for engaging and retaining

audiences in a highly competitive land-

scape.”

These capabilities are directly impact-

ing business outcomes through improved

monetization.

“AI is playing a major role in this transfor-

mation, helping businesses automate per-

sonalization, predict churn, and optimize

customer engagement through hyper-per-

sonalized marketing strategies,” said Paolo

Cuttorelli, senior vice president of glob-

al sales at Evergent. “We’re also seeing a

strong push around automation to simplify

back-end processes like payments, cus-

tomer support, and multi-partner billing

amid rapid aggregation and service bun-

dling.”

Balancing innovation

with practicality

As AI adoption accelerates, industry

leaders emphasize implementation ap-

proaches that maximize return on invest-

ment.

“One of the big trends we are seeing in

AI is frugal AI – the development of AI sys-

tems that prioritize efficiency, cost-effec-

tiveness, and resource optimization,” said

Petipont. “Traditional video indexing using

facial recognition and logo detection has

historically been prohibitively expensive,

especially at scale, often requiring multiple

costly processes for a single task. Frugal AI

changes this completely by reducing infer-

ence costs, cutting energy consumption,

and enhancing sustainability.”

Integrating AI with other technologies

creates comprehensive solutions for media

companies.

“We are well beyond the point of generi-

cally saying ‘you should be using AI in your

workflow’ and have moved to a stage where

AI can be transformative in a video plat-

form, but its functionality and efficacy must

also be easily measured and recognized by

rights holders, providers, and leagues,” said

Matt Smith, chief evangelist at Akta.

As the industry gathers in Las Vegas this

April, the focus will be on AI solutions that

deliver measurable benefits today while

positioning media companies for future in-

novations.

“We think 2025 will be the year that, in-

stead of isolated use cases, AI becomes

fully integrated into end-to-end media

workflows,” said Venugopal Iyengar, COO,

digital at Planetcast. “AI will automate tasks

ranging from metadata extraction and con-

tent segmentation to highlight creation and

contextual advertising – unlocking new ef-

ficiencies and monetization opportunities.”

Industry leaders also acknowledge that

responsible implementation remains cru-

cial as AI becomes more deeply embedded

in media operations.

“As AI becomes more deeply embedded

in media workflows, the challenge is not

just harnessing its power but doing so in

a way that builds trust, transparency, and

tangible efficiency gains,” said Wilson. 

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