The media and entertainment industry, like many others, has undergone a significant transformation. This transformation is more visible to the public than many other industries, as it's something that people interact with in their everyday lives. An example is the transition from video to DVD and now the rise of streaming services. The way people consume media and entertainment has drastically changed over the last thirty years, while the methods of producing the content have also been disrupted by the advent of new technologies.
The media and entertainment industry has always been innovative, but the rise of digital media and next-gen technologies has created new opportunities. Accelerated by disruptive events like the pandemic, Ryan Kido — CTO at Ateliere Creative Technologies — believes that organizations in the sector are now fully embracing a digital first mindset.
“Integrated digital supply chains and the cloud as an enabler are viewed by the industry as a way to accomplish key business goals, which focus on becoming more agile in producing, creating and delivering content to consumers,” he said.
Beyond cost saving and being able to bring content to the market faster, the true benefit of this industry shake-up is creativity. New technologies, like generative AI and new ways of working, enable creative processes that bring new stories, opportunities and adventures to the consumer.
The potential pitfalls
Ongoing news from the world of media and entertainment has focused on the actor’s and writer’s strikes. These workers are seeking increases in their pay, as well as a greater percentage of earnings from streaming services. In addition, they are also demanding protection from studios using artificial intelligence to replace their jobs.
The potential disruption caused by artificial intelligence (AI) in this way has caught many in the industry by surprise, according to Kido.
He explained: “When thinking about the evolution of AI, it felt like the technology was going to be automating mundane or repetitive tasks, such as machine automation or driverless cars. Instead, the rise of generative AI is coming for creative work. This surprise has created consternation and has caused, quite rightly, these big questions to be asked by actors and writers.”
If this issue can’t be resolved, the industry might lose its opportunity for technologies like generative AI to enable bigger and better storytelling and instead, give rise to mindless and heavily biased content.
“The other problem of generative AI, in the current models, is there's bias and use of potentially copyrighted materials without the proper permissioning,” added Kido.
The generative AI opportunity for creativity
If the problems highlighted by the actors and writers can be resolved, generative AI has huge potential to positively transform the world of media and entertainment across the value chain.
Looking at the very beginning of the creative process, generative AI will enable writers and storytellers to create concept art to help communicate stories and ideas at incredibly fast speeds — a term called pre-visualization. “Maybe this will mean that some stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told, can be told,” said Kido.
Moving further down the creative line, generative AI will power new virtual production techniques and allow for greater experimentation during filming and distribution.
As an example, Kido referred to The Mandalorian — a live action series set in the Star Wars universe.
He said: “Instead of shooting against green screens, they started shooting against LED screens. In addition, instead of adding all the visual effects after principal photography, they are now able to add most of the effects during the camera capture itself. As generative AI takes off, these in-shoot visual effects can be further enhanced in more dynamic ways. Creatives can put the audience into more immersive worlds, and they can do more pre-visualization in these worlds. Virtual production has a huge potential benefit to telling new stories at lower costs, while being more sustainable, so you don't always have to move to different physical locations.”
The introduction of generative AI will also impact how accessible new content is. The use of the technology will break down barriers to access and enable greater localization in terms of embedding different languages and subtitles.
From a consumer standpoint, generative AI will enable hyper personalization. It might allow consumers to embed their voice or image into a piece of content, bringing forward a more immersive and interactive experience. This growth of more dynamic content, in line with traditional storytelling, will help set organizations apart in their fight for market share.
The future of media and entertainment
The world of technology and business is colliding within the media and entertainment industry. There are now endless creative possibilities and a chance to tell stories in a way not seen before, with the caveat of ensuring that actors, writers and everyone else involved in the process is not exploited.
Looking at the future of the industry from a commercial sense, Kido explained: “The rise of streaming has pushed business models forward. We’ve now found ourselves in a place where there are commercial concerns about how to make money through subscriptions versus ads. This needs to be reconciled.”
He added: “Those tensions will continue to play havoc until the industry finds a strong business footing, which will allow it to continue to grow in these new paradigms.”
With uncertainty around business models, the media and entertainment industry will need to find a way to reduce costs when creating and distributing content, while finding new revenue sources on the top line. This situation will continue to fuel innovation, with a particular focus on experimenting with generative AI to fill that gap.
