Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, And The Future Of Entertainment

With the advent and unprecedented success in the utilization of AI and machine learning across social media, delivering bespoke video and image content to their users, the question is quickly arising on when it will be further placed within the film and TV environment for broadcasters, streamers, studios and the like to better serve audiences tastes.

Currently AI in media and entertainment is a sector that is worth $13 billion with a compound annual growth rate of 26 per cent. By 2030, the industry is set to be worth a staggering $99.3 billion with all of that worth coming from the entertainment arenas. The thought process behind the immense growth being the need for production companies, studios, streaming platforms, broadcasters, distributors, and exhibitors needing to understand their audiences better to sharpen and narrow in on what their bottom line will be.

Since the dawn of cinema and TV a winning formula for content has been hard to come by. With every entity consistently struggling to recognize what their viewers actually want and what will be a hit. Even throwing top-of-the-line A-list actors and a $200 million budget has not always been a formula for success and is synonymous with a big risk and a lot of pressure for investors, platforms, and studios. The advent of AI and machine learning is set to change the guessing game that the media and entertainment industry have grown scarily accustomed to with – a lot of the time – hundreds of millions of dollars on the line.

At the 4th Milken Institute Middle East and Africa Summit held in Abu Dhabi, UAEUAE
, a panel titled “The Future Of Entertainment” had an industry renowned group discussing new trends to look for. The group included Aryeh B. Bourkoff – the founder and CEO of LionTree, Jay Brown – the co-founder and vice chairman of Roc Nation, and the managing director of Marcy Ventures, Kevin Mayer – the co-CEO of Candle Media, former chairman of direct-to-consumer and international at Disney and the current chairman of DAZN group, and Penni Thow – the founder and CEO of Copper.

Mayer brought up the future of AI and machine learning.

“I think one of the things that is going to determine the future of entertainment is AI in a big way. A technology that can be used to determine what to make.”

“We already see streaming platforms using data, not for the creative per se, but to say ah this audience loves this kind of programming with these stars, you know, delivered at this time and this format. So AI, and machine learning really help you there.”

Mayer then continued to opine on how social media has taken low budget unprofessional content, utilized AI and machine learning, and seamlessly personalized users’ experience using the technology to match what they want to see and created massive traction.

“You can take what would be pretty unusually bad programming like tiktok. If you take any individual tiktok video they’re mostly pretty bad and you know the UGC (user generated content) doesn’t work etc, but you pulled them together with AI that understands any individual’s preferences and you deliver them exactly what they’re interested in and the exact sequence they want to see it and all of a sudden that comes to life and that’s why this low production value content massively engages people, and that’s all done by AI and personalization, so I think that’s part of the big future of our industry.”

Malik Kurdi, the founder of Exemplary Marketing echoed Mayer’s sentiment. Kurdi’s company specializes in robust web application development and mobile application development including automation and machine learning. They work with clients to bring bespoke solutions to the forefront. Malik has built 145 solutions so far.

On the future of entertainment from a tech perspective Kurdi said, “Machine learning and AI is absolutely the future. From a production and UI/UX perspective we’ve grown leaps and bounds but understanding audiences and learning about them in a more efficient manner is a massive barrier to growth. Platforms take unnecessary gambles on content coupled with the growing problem of content and app overload.”

“There’s so much content and so many apps, AI and machine learning can be used to make life so much easier for viewers and app users. From a corporation perspective barrier of entry and capacity for revenue growth completely changes. You can make more accurate decisions and more accurate investments. For us, it’s great, we can develop apps that constantly evolve with consumer experience. Something we’ve become very accustomed to seeing.”

He continued: “The AI market as a whole is anticipated to be worth $1.5 trillion by 2030 across all sectors. There is a reason for that and we intend to continue being a part of the sector to enable us to continue growing.”

With demand for technology in the area skyrocketing the scope and usage of AI is set to become much more ingrained in society for commercial growth and consumer efficiency.