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NEWSCASTSTUDIO.COM
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NEWSCASTSTUDIO.COM
As the broadcast industry prepares to
gather at NAB Show, artificial intelligence
continues to be on the minds of many ven-
dors and end users, albeit for slightly difer-
ent reasons.
According to Haivision’s sixth annual
“Broadcast Transformation Report,” which
surveyed nearly 900 broadcast and media
professionals between November and De-
cember 2024, AI implementation in media
workflows jumped from just 9% in 2024 to
25% in 2025. Even more telling, 64% of re-
spondents believe AI will have the most sig-
nificant industry impact over the next five
years, far outpacing other technological
innovations.
This dramatic increase reflects a funda-
mental change in how the industry views
AI — no longer as a concept but as an es-
sential component of modern supply chain.
While the report indicates that broadcast-
ers remain cautious with full-scale tech-
nology transformations, preferring hybrid
approaches that balance innovation with
reliability, AI has moved beyond the exper-
imental phase to deliver tangible applica-
tions throughout the media ecosystem.
As industry leaders head to this year’s
NAB Show, they’re focusing on practical
AI implementations that solve real-world
challenges while improving efciency and
enhancing viewer experiences.
From buzzword to business tool
What was once a futuristic concept has
quickly become a primary tool for automa-
tion and efciency, with the industry now
seeking measurable returns on AI invest-
ments.
“AI has long been a buzzword and while
it continues to be one now, I expect we’ll
see a shift toward more concrete and com-
plete AI applications,” said Julien Signes,
executive vice president of video network
at Synamedia. “I anticipate video service
providers will look for more tangible ben-
efits and new ways to leverage AI to better
improve efciencies across the video dis-
tribution and delivery ecosystem.”
The conversation has evolved from the-
oretical possibilities to practical imple-
mentations that deliver clear value.
“The industry is past the initial AI hype
and is now looking at real-world applica-
tions,” said Simon Hawkings, director of
sales strategy and business acceleration at
Ross Video. “Most broadcasters are find-
ing success using it for backend efcien-
cies — things like media asset management,
post-production automation, meta-tagging
data, and ad targeting. AI is also playing a
role in audience analytics, helping compa-
nies better understand viewing behaviors
and optimize content distribution.”
This focus on practical applications is
reshaping development priorities across
the industry.
“Since the launch of ChatGPT, the M&E
industry has been talking loudly about the
potential of AI, but few are deploying tech-
nologies that put ‘their money where their
mouth is,’ shall we say, and no, it is not one
GPT fits all,” said Gilles Domartini, founder
and CEO of Cleeng.
“At NAB, we expect more discussions
around practical AI use cases that can be
implemented now, such as AI for insight
generation,” added Domartini.
Streamlining workflows and
automating production
AI is proving particularly valuable in
workflow optimization, delivering time and
cost savings while freeing creative profes-
sionals to focus on higher-value tasks.
“It’s no surprise that AI is expected to
dominate conversations at NAB again this
year, moving beyond a futuristic concept to
an essential tool for media organizations,”
said Scott Goldman, U.S. general manager
at Qibb. “Last year’s hot topic has become
this year’s priority, as delaying AI adoption
is no longer an option in an increasingly
competitive landscape.”
The technology enhances both front-end
and back-end operations, with automation
bringing efciency to previously manual
tasks.
“In the area of robotic camera control,
AI is helping us develop products that can
track onscreen talent more accurately
while also enabling our camera trolley sys-
tems and OmniGlide studio camera rover to
start and stop more precisely,” said Michael
Cuomo, vice president at Telemetrics. “This
is important as AI-assisted automated cam-
era operation frees up camera operators to
focus on other tasks.”
“In the media and entertainment realm,
we’re seeing a continually increasing de-
mand for automated camera control and
framing in broadcast and production en-
vironments, and AI ofers solutions for
enabling those capabilities,” said Kento
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Show vendors to spotlight efcent,
valuable AI tools for broadcasters
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
NAB PREVIEW
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 efciency, reliability and scal-
ability,” said Adi Rozenberg, RIST director
and CEO/CTO co-founder at Alvalinks.
The technology ofers 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 efciency 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 difcult 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 ofer-
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 efciency, cost-efec-
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 efcacy 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 efciency gains,” said Wilson.
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