“For the past year, the media industry has asked, ‘What is possible with AI?’” says Google Cloud’s Global Managing Director, Strategic Industries, Anil Jain. “Now the conversation has shifted from experimental pilots to production-scale execution. And as we enter the era of agentic AI, the distance between a creative spark and a finished frame is shrinking even further.”

Whereas generative AI helps people produce content, Jain said, agentic AI goes further, “reasoning through multistep processes and using specialized tools to solve complex problems, always with human oversight.”

At NAB Show, Google Cloud is discussing its holistic AI strategy and highlighting the use of its technology by companies like Adobe, Dailymotion, Globo, Fox Sports, Sphere and Paramount to remove production bottlenecks from the creative process.

For instance, Brahma AI uses Google’s AI stack to deploy and scale high-fidelity digital likenesses that help humanize data sets.

Groupe CANAL+ is applying generative media models to extract value from its archives. Using Gemini’s multimodality, it can process video, audio and text to automate asset categorization.

GETTING PERSONAL

Media companies are also using AI to personalize audience experiences, as with Major League Baseball’s new Scout Insights in the MLB Gameday app. It uses Gemini to provide AI-powered color commentary based on millions of Statcast data points.

And AI is enhancing enterprise productivity. For example, Cadent uses custom AI agents built on Gemini Enterprise to automate complex tasks, leading to an increase in campaign return on ad spend and saving thousands of hours of manual internal work.

Global Director, Telco, Media & Technology, Albert Lai said Google’s tools are used by broadcasters and studios, social networks, streamers, news publications and pay TV operations, and noted that using agentic AI at production scale in such applications requires specialized infrastructure.

He said Google Cloud provides multimodal intelligence that understands and generates text, audio and video natively. Its DeepMind research has enhanced the capabilities of Gemini, Veo, Nano Banana and Lyria. Google’s infrastructure also offers custom chips that match media workloads, all protected with enterprise-grade security.

“Media companies are integrating agentic AI into a supply chain that they themselves describe as ‘AI in the loop,’” Lai said. “It means creatives are being deliberate in their application of agentic AI into their workflows to augment human creativity and storytelling.”

In just two years, Jain said, AI has moved from experimentation and pilot projects into production and now into the realization of business value across the media supply chain.

Companies are using it to create storyboards, extract metadata, automate the logging of clapperboards, generate subtitles and dubs, turn text into animation, identify ad breaks, change aspect ratios, create multiple pieces of content for highlight reels and personalize that content.

REPLUMBING THE PIPELINE

At a time when the creator economy has exploded and a platform like TikTok can create cultural change, Jain said media companies must reshape their content pipelines to meet consumer demands.

“We believe AI is a much larger and more impactful, transformative technological shift than we’ve seen in our lifetimes. But it’s also a time of tool fragmentation, which is a nightmare for CTOs, CIOs and chief data officers,” he said.

“Our mission is to help organizations think through and implement new ways of working. You can think about us as the AI cloud now, and we’re here for the long game.”

Google Cloud is in booth W2731. It also will participate in several sessions, including one on the Main Stage (N141) Tuesday afternoon.

Jain and Google’s Márcia Mayer will discuss “The Augmented Studio: Supercharging Creativity With the Power of AI,” along with Dustin Myers, executive vice president of production operations and technology for Fox Sports.

Building on a deal announced last August to unify Gray Media's digital footprint, Quickplay has announced the full-scale deployment of Gray Media's next-generation streaming platform, which is now delivering hyper-local news and entertainment to 37% of US TV households.

Built with Google Cloud AI, the new platform is currently live across Gray's 113 legacy television markets, and will soon be launched across four new markets that recently joined the Gray Media family.

The new platform, which is built on Quickplay's orchestration infrastructure and Google Cloud's unified AI stack, is a notable development in AI-powered digital delivery of local news because it consolidates Gray's entire digital footprint — 163 websites, 326 mobile apps and 815 smart TV applications — onto a single data-driven architecture.

The integration allows Gray Media to manage 1,300 digital touchpoints with real-time viewer intelligence, delivering hyper-local news and entertainment to 37% of US TV households with unprecedented speed. The integrated operation is now running 269 live channels under centralized management and 123 FAST channels active across Amazon Prime, FireTV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus and Vizio.

"Our vision to transform the local news experience has taken a step forward today," said Pat LaPlatney, president and co-CEO, Gray Media. "Our collaboration with Quickplay and Google Cloud has enabled us to not just build but scale a platform that empowers our local newsrooms and provides our viewers with a truly next-generation experience. With well over 1,000 digital touchpoints and 123 FAST channels now active, we are leading the charge in AI-powered streaming innovation – redefining the delivery of tailored local content to our viewers on every screen they own."

To manage the complexity of 1,300+ digital touchpoints at scale, Gray has implemented Quickplay's orchestration layer, providing a cohesive framework that seamlessly integrates live channel management, content scheduling, ad insertion and distribution into a single automated workflow, driving greater operational agility and efficiency.

Early data from the rollout shows that moving to this unified, AI-driven cloud platform is already delivering significant business value, Gray and its tech partners said. Quickplay described those advantages as follows:

• Lower costs: Consolidating hundreds of separate systems into one cloud platform has significantly reduced infrastructure spending.
• Higher engagement: Personalized content recommendations are keeping viewers watching for longer.
• Faster news delivery: Newsrooms can now get breaking stories to the public twice as fast as before.
• Greater ad value: Precision targeting has increased the value and efficiency of Gray's advertising slots.

The platform is built on two primary pillars designed to bridge the gap between traditional broadcast and digital-first streaming. Quickplay acts as the operating system, organizing video and data into one orchestrated flow. Google Cloud AI provides the intelligence and global reach to power Gray's 113+ markets.

More specifically Quickplay handles the following:

• Unified management at scale: Quickplay provides a single, AI-ready orchestration layer that handles 269 live channels simultaneously, ensuring that high-quality video never lags for the end viewer. This centralized control allows Gray to manage its entire digital footprint through one interface.
• Seamless, broadcast-quality transitions: By leveraging LiveOps and Digital Scheduling, the platform manages the switch between shows and commercials with frame-accurate timing. This ensures that the streaming experience feels as smooth as traditional television while enabling the modern, addressable advertising necessary to drive digital revenue.
• Rapid market expansion: The architecture allows Gray to quickly launch and distribute content across 815 distinct smart TV applications and 123 FAST channels, allowing Gray to easily grow its audience.

"Gray Media is one of the largest local broadcast operations in the country, and deploying a unified infrastructure across 113+markets was not a simple integration," said Paul Pastor, Chief Business Officer, Quickplay. "But this is what Quickplay's content to value operating system was built to do. And the deployment is only the starting point – our goal is to set operators up for what comes next. That means an architecture that is ready to optimize AI at every layer and open to publishing endpoints that do not exist yet."

Google Cloud described its role as follows:

• Hyper-personalization at scale: Using Vertex AI, the platform understands viewer intent in real-time, delivering tailored content discovery that keeps audiences engaged longer.
• Operational intelligence: BigQuery enables Gray to analyze viewership patterns across 1,300+ touchpoints. This turns raw data into immediate programming and business strategies. This helps Gray's leadership see exactly what is trending across 113+ markets instantly, so they can make better business decisions.
• High-fidelity delivery and monetization: By integrating Media CDN with Google Ad Manager's Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI), Gray is able to handle ads and videos in the same system, which removes the delays and glitches often caused by using outside ad companies. This allows Gray to deliver personalized ads directly into the stream to maximize revenue without operational overhead or latency.

"This isn't just a migration; it's an AI-driven reimagining of the local media business model," said Albert Lai, global director of Strategic Industries, Telco, Media and Technology, Google Cloud. "By unifying their footprint on our AI and data platform, Gray Media has become a dynamic, data-driven enterprise. The scale of this rollout proves that when a media leader innovates with Quickplay's agility and Google scale, you create a new gold standard for ROI in the streaming era."

Over the next quarter, Quickplay reported that it will deploy the next phase of capabilities across Gray's platform, including:

• A Next-Gen application interface (a ground-up redesign)
• Native Mobile Verticalization
• AI-Embedded Shorts Creation
• Live Clipping with Ad-Marker Preservation
• Hybrid Hyper-Personalization (Content- and User-based recommendations)
• Precision Interactive Player Controls and Picture-in-Picture
• Dynamic Bitrate Adaptation
• Cross-Platform Universal Search
• Advanced Stream Monitoring & Tracking

PARIS and SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Canal+ and Google Cloud have announced a new multi-year deal and partnership focusing on artificial intelligence solutions for content discovery, personalization, production and other features.

Starting in June 2026, Canal+ will deploy Google Cloud's latest generative AI technologies across European and African markets where the Canal+ App is available to create tailor‑made entertainment experiences.

"We are pleased to leverage Google Cloud's most advanced AI technologies to drive Canal+'s technical innovation,” explained Stéphane Baumier, CTO of Canal+. “Building on a long-standing collaboration with Google, this strategic partnership paves the way for limitless possibilities. Content video indexing for Canal+ at scale gives the group a significant edge, notably by enabling us to deliver sharper discovery and truly enhanced personalized journeys on the Canal+ App across all our markets. Creativity is the cornerstone of Canal+'s content production. We are excited to push creative boundaries by providing creators with tools that enable AI-generated video scenes, impossible to produce using traditional methods."

Matt Renner, president, chief revenue officer of Google Cloud added that "the entertainment industry is at a pivotal inflection point where the intersection of creativity and compute power defines market leadership. Our deepened collaboration with Canal+ is a testament to a shared culture of relentless innovation. By leveraging Google Cloud's generative AI technologies, Canal+ is not just adopting tools; they are architecting the future of media and fundamentally transforming the entertainment landscape on a global scale."

Using Google Cloud's technologies, Canal+ will accelerate the content video indexing of its extensive content library. The new content classification will provide the global media and entertainment group with an in-depth multimodal database combining sound, video, and text data.

This increased granularity in content classification, will enable smarter, more personalized content recommendations on the homepage of the Canal+ App, matching each subscriber's preferences according to their viewing habits. This will make it easier than ever for subscribers to discover even more content they love on Canal+.

Canal+'s multimodal database of video-content will also pave the way for a wide range of opportunities, from enhanced content discovery to entirely new business models, the two companies reported.

In addition, Canal+ will also use Veo3, Google's new genAI video technology, to provide its production partners and creative teams with tools that will unlock the creative ambitions of their talent, for instance, previsualizing a scene before shooting it or recreating historical moments from a single archival photo.

The partnership guarantees a very secure technical environment, where rights, assets ownership are deeply protected. Using these tools & platform, Canal+'s partners will have full control of their production and editorial decision, with opportunities to try new approaches while ensuring cost control, thanks to significantly shorter experimentation cycles. This secure technical platform and tools will be made available to production who wish to use it in films supported by Canal+.

PARIS—Ateme, a provider of video compression, delivery, and streaming solutions, today announced it is leveraging Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities to automate large-scale, multilingual subtitle generation, a move Ateme says could drastically reduce costs and production times while enhancing content accessibility and value for audiences worldwide.

Ateme’s file transcoding application, TITAN File, is containerized as microservices and deployed through Google Kubernetes Engine. Media files stored in Google Cloud Storage are processed by Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s unified AI development platform. This distributed, flexible, and scalable infrastructure has allowed for a smooth transition and seamless integration into client workflows, according to Ateme.

“This innovation addresses a key challenge for content creators and distributors who have often been limited to translating content into a single language, thereby restricting international distribution and accessibility for non-English speaking or hearing-impaired audiences,” said Yohann Guilloux, VP Global Partnerships at Ateme.

“In the face of exploding content volumes, it’s no longer enough to have good technology: you have to be able to innovate quickly, at scale, and with the right partners,” said Jules Mermet-Husson, Cloud Solutions Architect at Ateme. “Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities enable us to automate what was once a challenging process. Together, we are building an agile, open, and scalable platform that transforms every technical constraint into an opportunity for value creation.“

ATLANTA—Gray Media has laid out plans for launching a new cutting-edge, hyper-personalized streaming platform that will start going live in Gray's markets in January of 2026.

The service will use an end-to-end solution from Google Cloud and Quickplay, that combines the power of Google Cloud's AI infrastructure with Quickplay’s flexible, cloud-native platform to deliver deeply personalized viewing experiences, the companies said.

By harnessing real-time data and advanced machine learning, Gray said the offering will transform how content is delivered and consumed.

“This newly created video partnership marks a pivotal moment for Gray. With this game- changing infrastructure, we are leading the charge into the future of local streaming, one personalized viewing experience at a time,” Gray’s president and co-CEO Pat LaPlatney said.

“We are proud to collaborate with Gray Media and Quickplay to bring the power of Google Cloud AI to the local broadcast industry,” said Albert Lai, global director, strategic industries, Media & Entertainment, Google Cloud. “Our AI capabilities enable Gray Media to understand viewer preferences and deliver personalized content that drives engagement and revenue. This collaboration demonstrates our commitment to helping media companies transform their businesses with AI.”

In making the announcement Gray described the capabilities of the platform as follows:

• Understand Viewer Preferences in Real Time: Leveraging advanced machine learning to analyze viewer behavior, content consumption patterns, and engagement metrics in real-time.
• Dynamically Adapt the Viewing Experience: Adjusting content sequences, ad loads, and overall presentation based on individual viewer preferences and engagement levels.
• Optimize Content Delivery for Maximum Engagement: Delivering personalized content recommendations, tailored search results, and seamless access across all devices.
• Future-Proof the Infrastructure: Embracing a cloud-native architecture that can scale, adapt, and evolve with the ever-changing media landscape.

“We are excited to be the first to deliver this innovative technology to viewers, including tailored recommendations and a personalized content experience that is seamless across devices,” Gray’s executive vice president and COO Sandy Breland said.

BARCELONA—Grup Mediapro and Google Cloud have expanded their collaboration to create an innovation lab focused on generative AI to develop solutions for the media and entertainment industry, the European interdisciplinary AV industry company said today at ISE 2025 here (Feb. 4-7).

Grup Mediapro began working with Google Cloud in 2023 on various proof-of-concept projects, it said. The company said it is now tasking professionals from its AI Center for Innovation to work with Google Cloud experts to take advantage of their knowledge and expertise for the M&E industry.

Together, the teams will develop a creative suite of solutions. This new platform will generate images and video with AI in a private, secure environment where generative content can be created without requiring technical knowledge or access to advanced functions, Grupo Mediapro said.

The collaboration will also experiment with Gemini models to generate personalized assistants to meet the needs of creators and place them at the center of decision-making, giving them the ability to define the type of assistance desired to create work in a more agile way, it said.

Grup Mediapro is also exploring the multimodal capabilities of Gemini models to enhance the value of content via automatic tagging. Benefits of this capability include intelligent archiving and generation of summaries and highlights of any AV content, it said.

See Grup Mediapro at ISE booth 4H500.

More information is available on the company’s website.

ARLINGTON, Texas—As the United Football League prepares to kick off its second season, the spring league plans to enhance its fan connection and experience with the help of artificial intelligence tools running on the Google Cloud.

The league today said Google Cloud will provide it with data analytics tools, including Big Query and Looker, that will enable the UFL and its partners to develop better products and services for fans, enhance the experience of watching games and help the league grow regardless of whether fans are in the arena or at home.

“Innovation from a business and football standpoint is a cornerstone of our league as well, and this collaboration provides us with the framework to build upon those innovations,” UFL President and CEO Russ Brandon said. “Through the UFL’s association with Google Cloud, the league is confident that reporting will not only be more accurate and efficient, but the solutions emerging from that data will lead to us being a more valuable sports entity.”

The league will collect comprehensive data from its ticket sales, sponsorship, marketing, consumer product sales and social media assets and leverage BigQuery, Looker and Gemini for Google Cloud models, the UFL said.

The UFL will also work with Google Cloud throughout the season to enhance its football analytic capabilities, it said.

“By better understanding their data with Google Cloud solutions, the UFL will be able to elevate the fan experience, in-person and virtually,” said Albert Lai, global strategic industries director for the M&E Industry at Google Cloud. “The UFL’s collaboration with Google Cloud is a great example of how organizing and unlocking the value of data with advanced data analytics tools and AI can impact both the football platform and fan engagement, and I look forward to seeing what happens in their second season.”

The 10-week UFL season begins March 28 at 8 p.m. (ET) with a matchup between the St. Louis Battlehawks and the Houston Roughnecks on Fox.

More information is available on the UFL’s website.

NEW YORK and SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Warner Bros. Discovery and Google Cloud has announced the deployment of a new, AI-powered captioning solution in the U.S. that utilizes Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform. 

Initially being applied to unscripted programming, this captioning solution's innovative technology is transforming the way Warner Bros. Discovery can create and deliver captions, significantly reducing production time and costs, while enhancing the quality of its captioning for domestic viewers, the two companies reported. 

To maintain high levels of accuracy, Warner Bros Discovery's captioning solution incorporates a workflow that utilizes Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to optimize captioning, coupled with human-oversight for quality assurance. This data-driven approach enables Warner Bros. Discovery to continuously refine and train the caption AI workflow, further reducing errors and striving to deliver consistently precise captions.

"Providing viewers with high-quality captions is incredibly important to Warner Bros. Discovery," said Avi Saxena, CTO, Direct to Consumer, Warner Bros. Discovery. "Working with Google Cloud to utilize Vertex AI within Warner Bros. Discovery's caption AI workflow has not only helped to accelerate our captioning process, but also has improved our efficiency and speed, while reducing costs."

Notable metrics include:

• Time Savings: The caption AI workflow reduces caption file creation time up to 80% compared to manual captioning.
• Cost Efficiency: The caption AI workflow cuts captioning costs up to 50%, enabling Warner Bros. Discovery to allocate resources more effectively.

"AI has the potential to transform a variety of processes across the media and entertainment industry that deliver real business impact," said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud."With its captioning solution, Warner Bros. Discovery is seeing an incredible example of how AI agents can save organizations time and money."

Gen AI is having a big effect on the Media & Entertainment Industry, touching everything from presenting the public with viewing options more closely aligned to their individual preferences to deriving business benefits, including higher revenue, but its role in video production lags other categories, according to a new report from Google Cloud and National Research Group.

The report, “The ROI of Gen AI in Media and Entertainment, A global survey of enterprise adoption and value,” is based on a survey of 263 senior leaders of global M&E enterprises with annual revenue of $10 million or more.

According to the report business benefits are being felt across three areas, including time to market, ROI and productivity.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents who identified where gen AI is having the greatest effects pointed to increased conversion (66%), creating new products and services (65%), improved leads and new customer acquisition as well as increased revenue (both 63%).

However, only 35% of 169 respondents answering the question reported using gen AI in the production process.

“Gen AI adoption has been much lower in production compared to customer service and marketing. This is because integrating gen AI into complex production processes might necessitate greater technical investment and a higher tolerance for disruption,” the report said.

If the speed at which Media & Entertainment businesses develop and deploy gen AI applications to meet specific use cases is an indication of the value they place upon the technology, its significance is obvious. A total of 83% reported moving a gen AI use case from idea to production within six months. The pace may be a sign of the “constant pressure” M&E organizations face to innovate as well as the availability of “user-friendly gen AI tools” capable of addressing sophisticated requirements, the report said.

Nearly three out of four M&E organization respondents using gen AI reported seeing a return on investment on at least one of their gen AI use cases, it said.

Gen AI is “emerging as a powerful tool” to tackle the challenges of better understanding audience preferences and derive new revenue streams. “Adoption of this technology in the industry is still in its early stages, but initial results are promising,” it said.

At the moment, the technology is having its greatest impact in powering targeted content recommendations, streamlining processes, such as script analysis, character development and visual effects, and optimizing ad strategies, the report said.

Gen AI is also affecting productivity. Of the 64% of M&E organizations reporting gen AI use in production saying their companies have derived increase productivity, 34% said employee productivity has at least doubled.

“This suggests that gen AI is not simply automating tasks, but fundamentally changing how work gets done—leading to substantial boosts in efficiency,” the report said.

The greatest champion advancing gen AI use at their organizations are chief technology officers (65%). Other important boosters include chief executive officers (49%), chief information officers (46%) and chief financial officers (31%), it said.

Future financial commitment to gen AI appears strong. Fifty percent of respondents said half their organization’s future AI budget will be devoted to gen AI. Twelve percent reported 75% will be allocated to the technology, the report said.

“Over the next two to three years, media and entertainment organizations plan to use gen AI to address a range of objectives, with increasing employee productivity (47%) and improving operational efficacy (46%) at the top of the list,” it said.

Global director for Media & Entertainment Albert Lai at Google has published a blog about the survey and report.

Google has published a link to the full report, which can be accessed after registering.

MIAMI—AI-powered video solutions specialist Akta has announced at StreamTV 2024 in Denver that its platform will now use Google Cloud’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) models.

The collaboration between Akta and Google brings cutting-edge AI capabilities to the Akta video platform with no code, delivering new efficiencies and innovation to media and entertainment companies, it said.

Google Cloud's Gemini models enable Akta to leverage advanced AI to enrich video metadata automatically. The models make it possible to extract accurate closed captions and enhance monetization of content as well as streamline several existing video workflows, it said.

"By utilizing Gemini and Google Cloud, we can drive new levels of discoverability of content and provide levels of data relevance never seen before in a content management system," said Akta chairman Alper Turgut. " The capability we are providing is unmatched in the space. This integration also greatly increases the discoverability and inherent value of our customers' content through metadata enhancement."

Akta's platform relies on a human-centered approach. It enables AI-generated metadata, captions and descriptions to be reviewed and approved by skilled professionals. This approach ensures accuracy and accelerates tedious manual tasks with AI, the company said.

"By integrating Google Cloud's Gemini models, media brands can take advantage of next generation tools that drive greater efficiency and improved discoverability," said Anil Saboo, director of industry ISV partnerships at Google Cloud.

Key benefits of integrating Gemini with the Akta platform include automatic tagging of videos with rich metadata, accurate closed captioning, generation of intelligent clip descriptions and the ability to take advantage of Gemini’s AI models without having to write any code.

The new integration is immediately available.

More information is available on the company’s website.

IRVINE, Calif.—The ad tech company Viant Technology Inc. has announced a new integration with Google Cloud’s BigQuery data clean rooms that enables the seamless onboarding of privacy-safe, first-party data from the Google Cloud ecosystem into the Viant Data Platform (VDP). This will improve targeting and measurement within Viant’s Demand-Side Platform (DSP), Viant reported. 

The integration comes at a time when third-party cookies are on the brink of obsolescence, which has boosted the demand for reliable, privacy-safe data solutions using first-party data.

Viant said that the partnership with Google Cloud’s BigQuery data clean rooms sets new standards for data privacy and operational efficiency, enabling first-party data matching and measurement through execution in the Viant DSP alongside the cookieless Viant Household ID.

As part of the integration, Viant data is now available as a service within Google Cloud data clean room environments. This integration ensures secure, privacy-safe data at scale, allowing advertisers to execute precise media campaigns and achieve closed-loop measurement across the Viant DSP, guaranteeing full interoperability. This partnership positions Viant as one of the first DSPs to enable a connection with Google Cloud’s BigQuery data clean rooms, paving the way for advanced data activation capabilities in programmatic advertising, the companies said. 

"In the current landscape, the importance of providing privacy-forward first-party data solutions for advertisers cannot be overstated," stated Dustin Kwan, chief product officer at Viant. "Our partnership with Google Cloud not only extends Viant capabilities for a post-cookie future but also keeps our data platform and DSP at the forefront of the industry, delivering solutions that respect user privacy while enhancing ad targeting and measurement capabilities."

TORONTO—During the NAB Show, Quickplay will be unveiling its new Curator Assistant and will be showing how the new solution uses the power of Generative AI to provide better content search and discovery. 

The new Curator Assistant was developed as part of Quickplay’s partnership with Google Cloud.

Quickplay reports that Curator Assistant turbocharges programming teams’ ability to expedite connections between consumers and relevant content. Building on Quickplay’s successful debut of its AI-powered Media Companion at IBC 2023, the Curator Assistant’s search capabilities enable the creation of storefront rails that contain more titles that engage consumer interest. The solution can also be programmed faster, Quickplay said. 

“OTT providers’ programming teams are the unsung heroes of content search,” said Paul Pastor, CBO and Co-Founder of Quickplay. “Curator Assistant gives them increased power to put the greatest assortment of relevant titles front and center before viewers.  Programmers will no longer be limited by their own or licensed metadata - they can literally leverage the entire Internet, with conversational search, to program their service and drive more discovery opportunities that are personalized to the user or cohort.”

Curator Assistant leverages Generative AI to help programmers discover new opportunities to merchandize their content.  With Curator Assistant integrated into the Quickplay CMS, programming teams can conversationally engage with the tool to set up rails aligned with topical or seasonal content or passion verticals that address viewers’ personal interests. 

The solution taps into Google Vertex AI that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to return results that tap into a much broader database than traditional metadata tagging.  Query results are matched in the Quickplay CMS against available content rights and user profiles, resulting in content presentation that is both surprising and relevant. These innovations are enabled by a modular, cloud based, open-AI platform architecture that plugs into AI marketplaces with ease and time-to-market advantages, the companies said. 

Curator Assistant is part of Quickplay’s ongoing commitment to optimizing AI-driven search, discovery and personalization. Media Companion’s debut at IBC put conversational interaction directly into the hands of viewers by using LLMs to provide deeper insights into content libraries; Curator Assistant empowers programming teams to ensure increased Storefront visibility for topics and titles of interest. The solution does this by:  

• Providing a natural language interface for assisted discovery, including catalog browsing, filtering, and cross-referencing assets.
• Augmenting content metadata with additional insights, including micro-genre descriptors, emotional tags, and embeddings to strengthen results.
• Determining natural content breakpoints to identify binge markers and ad-breaks that can improve usability and expand monetization.
• Auto-generating content rails based on results extracted from the catalog and further refining results based on a variety of engagement metrics.
• Personalizing content carousels based on individual taste preferences, content analyses, and consumption patterns.

Alongside Quickplay’s existing Streaming Analytics and A/B testing framework, these tools help content curators discover novel approaches to maximize audience engagement, the company reported. 

“Empowering curators to create dynamic storefronts with relevant and personalized content suggestions leveraging platforms like Vertex AI will drive more engagement, retention and monetization opportunities for clients,” said Juan Martin, Quickplay’s CTO and co-Founder. “Our goal is to elevate a curator’s impact with this tool in surfacing content that would otherwise not have been captured through traditional metadata programming tools”.

“Our partnership with Quickplay emphasizes not only cutting-edge technology through Generative AI use cases but also thought leadership and expertise in optimizing the viewer experience," says Anil Saboo, director of industry ISV partnerships at Google Cloud . “Together, Google Cloud and Quickplay are setting new standards for the future of OTT, pushing boundaries and shaping the landscape of content delivery.”

In demonstrations at Google Cloud Next 2024 (April 9-11) and NAB Show 2024 (April 13-16), Quickplay will show how the integration of Generative AI with Quickplay’s CMS is leading the way to optimal search experiences. 

In addition, Quickplay will share thought leadership in Generative AI-powered content discovery via two presentations: Martin’s “Driving Viewer Engagement With AI-Powered Conversational Search" at Google Cloud Next and “Creating and implementing AI-powered Conversational Search to Drive Viewer Engagement'' by Naveen Narayanan, senior director, product innovation and strategy, at NAB 2024. 

Naveen’s presentation will be delivered at the Broadcasting Engineering and IT Conference “Application of Large Language Models (LLMs) in Media” at 11:30 AM Saturday, April 13 in Rooms W220-W221 of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

NEW YORK—Amagi has announced a strong surge in its customer deployments of broadcast and FAST channels on Google Cloud, with channel growth of over 30 percent on Google Cloud in the last six months.

Amagi reported that it has seen a consistent demand for digital linear channels deployed on Google Cloud, with around a 30% percent Month-on-Month (MoM) increase in hours of viewing (HOV). In addition it has seen a parallel increase in ad impressions over the last six months using Amagi CloudPort playout and ThunderStorm monetization software. 

"Amagi's collaboration with Google Cloud reinforces our vision to provide pioneering cloud solutions to the broadcasting and streaming industry. With Google Cloud's robust cloud infrastructure, we're now able to offer a full range of broadcast-grade advanced playout features tailored not just for FAST content consumption, but also for traditional cable. Additionally, with access to advanced ad formats and rich analytics capabilities, we empower content owners to optimize their content delivery and monetization strategies. With Google Cloud, Amagi is driving innovation in cloud-based broadcasting, while ensuring high broadcast-grade quality at very competitive costs," remarked Srinivasan KA, co-founder and chief revenue officer at Amagi.

Anil Saboo, Director, Industry ISV Partnerships, Google Cloud, added that “in partnering with Google Cloud, Amagi is harnessing the power of Google Cloud to drive growth in the media and entertainment sector. Their approach to channel origination and monetization stands as a testament to what cloud technology can achieve in today's digital age."

LOS ANGELES—Cineverse has announced that it will use Vionlabs and Datatonic as key technology partners for the company's new generative AI search and discovery tool, cineSearch. 

The cineSearch tool is being developed through these strategic partnerships using Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform. The tool features Ava. new personalized AI video adviser designed to make deciding what to watch as entertaining as the entertainment itself, Cinevere said. 

Together with Google Cloud, Vionlabs and Datatonic's expertise, Cineverse is showcasing its AI-based video assistant at NAB Show 2024 in Las Vegas. Set to revolutionize how users navigate the vast and confusing landscape of streaming movies and TV, cineSearch integrates seamlessly with Cineverse's own streaming platform. The tool will also be available on third-party platforms and OEMS as a white label SaaS offering, ensuring anyone anywhere can find the perfect film or streaming service for any occasion.

In February, Cineverse announced its plans to develop cineSearch, which is using the PaLM 2 Large Language Model (LLM) via Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to build an innovative, conversational experience for those seeking guidance on what films or TV shows to watch. 

Vionlabs, renowned for its expertise in cognitive AI, will provide detailed title and scene-specific metadata, providing cineSearch with a comprehensive contextual understanding of filmed content. By leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, Vionlabs generates subjective and unique metadata based on colors, emotions, mood, environments etc, enabling personalization systems to identify new patterns in user behavior, Cineverse reported. 

"We're excited to join forces with Cineverse to usher in a new era of personalized entertainment," said Marcus Bergström, CEO of Vionlabs. "Our advanced AI capabilities will empower cineSearch and its users to discover content that resonates with them on a deeper level, enriching their movie-watching experience like never before."

Vionlabs' metadata, when paired with Datatonic's expertise on Google Cloud and GenAI, has made this possible - enabling searches that are both highly specific and deeply nuanced. Additionally, a collection of guardrails and Google Cloud security best practices ensures that cineSearch is safe, robust, and ethical.

"cineSearch is poised to reshape the landscape of entertainment, offering audiences a truly immersive and personalized movie-watching experience. Unlike traditional recommendation engines, cineSearch allows users to describe exactly what they're looking for using natural language. It then taps into an extensive database spanning blockbusters, indies, classics, and niche titles from all genres and eras - ensuring recommendations aren't limited to just the latest mainstream hits. Leveraging a complex chain of Gemini LLMs, state-of-the-art RAG techniques and guardrail methodologies, the solution provides safe, secure, factual and topical experiences to users This collaboration represents a significant milestone in the industry, marking the dawn of a new era where technology and storytelling converge to create magic on screen," said Valentin Cojocaru, head of data science at Datatonic.

"cineSearch represents an evolutionary leap in how audiences engage with movies," remarked chief technology officer & chief operating officer of Cineverse Tony Huidor. "By leveraging cutting-edge advancements in artificial intelligence, and partnering with best-in-class technology companies like Google Cloud, Vionlabs and Datatonic, we're able to empower viewers to discover content that truly resonates with them, by providing them with unprecedented insights into the subjective traits of a film."

"Google Cloud is proud to support Cineverse and Vionlabs in their mission to revolutionize the entertainment industry," said Anil Saboo, director of industry ISV Partnerships at Google Cloud. "Our Gen-AI capabilities are enabling innovative solutions that push the boundaries of what's possible, delivering unparalleled value to audiences worldwide."

For more information or to sign up for the cineSearch Beta, visit cineSearch.ai. 

LOS ANGELES—Cineverse Corp. has announced that it will be launching a new AI-powered movie search platform called cineSearch. 

The public beta of cineSearch, which was developed using Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform, will be available within the Cineverse streaming platform in Spring 2024. Users can join the waitlist for the public beta at www.Cinesearch.com.  It will then be made more widely available in partnership with OEM and third-party streaming platform partners in the near future, the company said. 

“Effective search and discovery is currently the most pressing problem for users of streaming services today,” says Tony Huidor, chief technology officer & chief operating officer of Cineverse. “We first developed cineSearch as an answer to our own problem. Using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, we now have the ability to expand this feature well beyond our initial expectations. We feel this is a great example of leveraging the power of AI to not only create better user experiences, but to also help aid in the discovery of great films that fans may not have otherwise found.”   

The cineSearch service was developed by Cineverse using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Search, the company reported. The underlying core cineSearch technology was built as an adaptive layer on top of the PaLM 2 Large Language Model (LLM) with the intent to craft a chatbot specifically tuned for feature film and television entertainment. Through the use of PaLM 2 and Google Cloud’s gen AI infrastructure, cineSearch promises an innovative, conversational experience for those seeking advice on what films to watch. 

As part of this new service, Cineverse is introducing a new “artificial intelligence-based video advisor” that will be known simply as “Ava.”

The launch of Cineverse’s AI-powered search feature will utilize the first proprietary movie industry-specific AI model specifically tuned with an extensive set of metadata – both standard metadata as well as computer vision-based enriched, contextual metadata (such as weather or setting) – across more than 100,000 Hollywood movies and television shows, the company said. 

The cineSearch tool offers a single unified search engine with support for dozens of search dimensions such as theme, tone, mood, setting, music score, plot, micro-genre, and many more traits for films available across all streaming services. 

The cineSearch service will also utilize scene-specific metadata and a viewer’s previous viewing history as well as their location, the current date, the local weather conditions, and other factors to determine the ideal titles to recommend. Viewers will be able to conduct searches across a plethora of characteristics at the film and scene-level, making the process of finding the perfect movie more intuitive, simple and entertaining. In addition, if a particular movie is not available within Cineverse’s extensive catalog, Ava will recommend films available elsewhere – and provide direct links to access films available across other streaming services – for a seamless movie discovery experience. 

“Generative AI has the potential to fundamentally transform the media industry, fueling a new era of cloud-enabled capabilities that can significantly improve the consumer experience,” said Anil Jain, Global Managing Director of Strategic Consumer Industries at Google Cloud. “By leveraging Google Cloud’s leading gen AI capabilities, cineSearch can further personalize and streamline the user experience, providing viewers a vastly improved way to discover new content, with relevant recommendations  for movies and television shows at their fingertips.”

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Google Cloud has unveiled Vertex AI Search capabilities built specifically for media and entertainment companies to empower their customers with more personalized media recommendations.

Vertex AI Search is Google Cloud’s first generally available generative AI-powered recommendation tool. It is designed to keep audiences more engaged by delivering personalized content recommendations that address viewers’ individual interests, Google Cloud said.

A recent Harris Poll study commissioned by Google Cloud found 79% of respondents reported having kept a subscription after discovering new content. By providing more personalized content recommendations, media and entertainment companies can increase time spent on their platforms, which can lead to higher revenue and retention, it said.

"Vertex AI Search is becoming an essential tool for media and entertainment companies, helping them improve and deepen audience engagement," said Anil Jain, managing director, Strategic Consumer Industries at Google Cloud. "The new capabilities launched today will provide personalized recommendations for content using gen AI, which can help media companies better engage, grow and retain their audiences."

The new Vertex AI Search capabilities build upon Google's development of video streaming platforms like YouTube and news aggregator services Google News, as well as personalized product recommendations for e-commerce, it said.

Vertex AI Search considers user behavior, such as the articles a person reads and videos views, to identify patterns. This translates to recommendations that predict content the user is more likely to engage with. The tool works in real-time to adapt recommendations quickly to new viewers. It also takes into consideration different moods and intentions of a user during any given session, it said.

It also compares the content of different articles, videos and other pieces of content to identify similarities, allowing it to generate recommendations for content similar to what the user has already viewed, it said.

Vertex AI Search is fully managed and can be integrated into consumer touchpoints, including web, TV, mobile and newsletters, using an easy-to-use API. This can allow media and entertainment companies to focus their engineering teams on new, differentiated opportunities while still providing cutting-edge personalized recommendations, it said.

More information is available on the Google Cloud website.

An analysis of recent price increases among the largest cloud providers shows the impact of AI on cloud services, and in particular, how the price of accelerators is having on rates. 

This is according to Liftr Insights which over the past three months tracked the average price of accelerators, which are used to enhance and expand cloud capabilities. Prices have increased for the top cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, Alibaba (Aliyun) Cloud, and Google Cloud. For example, when looking at certain NVIDIA GPUs, Azure is leading the pack with prices increasing by 55.2% in the past three months. Specifically, these percentages are based on average price for NVIDIA Tensor Core (Ampere) models. Google Cloud was the next largest at 20.0% followed by Alibaba Cloud and AWS at 3.5% and 1.2%, respectively.

A portion of these increases are due to higher core counts, but the prices for these in-demand accelerators also show growth when evaluating the average price per core.

"While we see many valuable data points in the prices across providers and across the globe, Liftr data show that cloud prices don't typically fluctuate to this extent," says Tab Schadt, CEO of Liftr Insights. "It's a sign of the hot AI market. Accelerators—like NVIDIA GPUs—are the technology needed for artificial intelligence training and inference. Demand for AI is driving these price changes."

Among many attributes, Liftr Insights tracks on-demand prices for the top six cloud providers, representing over 75% of the total public cloud space. These prices are measured for all the unique configurations in Liftr Insights data, including numerous dimensions for processors and accelerators, such as global region, architecture, core count, and accelerator count as a few examples.

"This level of information is important for organizations needing to pay attention to their bottom line," says Schadt. "Particularly as they expand into new territories and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. Our customers will be paying close attention to changes in the data as they occur."

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—In a notable example of how broadcasters are adopting generative AI to provide new content and experiences to viewers, Fox Sports has announced that it is working with Google to unlock the full potential of Fox’s vast sports content archives using Google Cloud's generative AI (gen AI) technology. 

The announcement expands on Fox Sports and Google Cloud's work in building Fox Sports' Intelligent Asset Service (IAS) that was first announced in 2020.

As part of the expanded collaboration with Google, Fox Sports is now planning to use use Google Cloud's gen AI technology through Vertex AI Vision to quickly search footage from more than 1.9 million videos and then produce new content in near real-time to delight and engage its global audiences. 

The collaboration has particularly important implications for the production of live events. Vertex AI Vision will allow Fox Sports to more quickly ingest live video and images, analyze millions of hours of games footage and commentary, while helping Fox employees create new television content, social media clippings, marketing assets, and more with ease. 

"With Google Cloud, we're able to utilize video search, advanced machine learning, and artificial intelligence to automate one of the most manual processes in sports media: tagging and searching video content," said Brad Zager, president of production/operations & executive producer, Fox Sports. "Compared to previous media management workflows, our team is able to swiftly find relevant content, which is critical in the business of live sports." 

Fox Sports' Intelligent Asset Service (IAS), which was first announced in 2020, utilizes Google Cloud's video search and advanced machine learning capabilities to help the sports network automate managing media assets. IAS allows Fox Sports to gain more value from its content library by reducing its reliance on paper logs, conflicting systems, and producers manually sifting through tapes by hand. As of 2022, IAS has been implemented across all major Fox Sports broadcasts, the companies reported. 

An early adopter of Google Workspace, Fox Sports is able to better connect and collaborate with teammates across Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, and more—no matter the device, the companies explained. With Duet AI in Google Workspace, the Fox can also create a production schedule for a sports season in minutes versus the hours it would take to do so manually. 

"Fox Sports is committed to providing its viewers the best possible experiences across platforms, and that starts with the technology that powers them," said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. "By choosing Google Cloud's AI technologies, Fox Sports is not only maximizing its content production capabilities, but also delivering transformative viewing experiences that keep its audiences engaged and entertained."

BELLEVUE, Wash.—T-Mobile and Google Cloud have announced that they will be working together to develop advanced 5G network solutions that combine the power of 5G networks and edge compute technologies. 

As part of the effort, T-Mobile will connect its 5G ANS suite of public, private and hybrid 5G networks with Google Distributed Cloud Edge (GDC Edge) to help customers deploy next-generation 5G applications and use cases in such areas as AR/VR. 

The partnership comes at a time when the global edge compute market size is expected to grow by 37.9% to $155.9 billion in 2030 and more companies are focusing on edge computing, which offers lower latency for such services as streaming, online gaming, AR and VR, the two companies reported. 

As part of the agreement, GDC Edge customers across industries will be able to leverage T-Mobile’s 5G ANS easily to get the low latency, high speeds, and reliability they will need for any use case that requires data-intensive computing processes such as AR or computer vision, the companies reported. 

To demonstrate the promise of 5G ANS and GDC Edge in a retail setting, T-Mobile created a proof of concept at T-Mobile’s Tech Experience 5G Hub called the “magic mirror” with the support of Google Cloud. This interactive display leverages cloud-based processing and image rendering at the edge to make retail products “magically” come to life. Users simply hold a product in front of the mirror to make interactive videos or product details — such as ingredients or instructions — appear onscreen in near real-time.

“We’ve built the largest and fastest 5G network in the country. This partnership brings together the powerful combination of 5G and edge computing to unlock the expansion of technologies such as AR and VR from limited applications to large-scale adoption,” said Mishka Dehghan, senior vice president, strategy, product, and solutions engineering, T-Mobile Business Group. “From providing a shopping experience in a virtual reality environment to improving safety through connected sensors or computer vision technologies, T-Mobile’s 5G ANS combined with Google Cloud’s innovative edge compute technology can bring the connected world to businesses across the country."

“Google Cloud is committed to helping telecommunication companies accelerate their growth, competitiveness, and digital journeys,” said Amol Phadke, general manager, global telecom industry, Google Cloud. “Google Distributed Cloud Edge and T-Mobile's 5G ANS will help businesses deliver more value to their customers by unlocking new capabilities through 5G and edge technologies.”

Tedial, a provider of media technology solutions, has joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program as a technology partner, giving Google Cloud customers easy access to Tedial’s smartWork cloud-native, no-code media integration platform.

The Google Cloud Partner Advantage program enables tech companies and service providers to sell, manage and support Google Cloud products and solutions. The program is designed to help partners deliver customer excellence while driving growth by providing access to resources, tools, and support from Google Cloud.

“Tedial is proud to join the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program as a technology partner," said Julián Fernández-Campón, Tedial CTO. "smartWork, our cloud-native no-code media integration platform, underwent a rigorous testing and approval process to achieve this designation, including a solution architecture technical review, and deployment and testing on Google Cloud’s infrastructure using the services available for cost optimization and maximize the performance (GKE, Google Cloud Storage, Database, AI tools, etc.) to build an effective and real cloud native solution in Google Cloud. 

"Receiving this designation is proof that Tedial complied with Google Cloud’s best practices usage requirements and that the platform is well-architected from a technical standpoint in terms of security, scalability, cost-efficiency, and operational excellence, is also well documented and has a clearly defined business model and SLAs.”

“By bringing its platform to Google Cloud’s globally trusted infrastructure, customers seeking different media & entertainment services and applications can easily access Tedial’s smartWork cloud-native, no-code media integration platform”, said Kip Schauer, Global Head of Media and Entertainment Partnership at Google Cloud. “We’re excited to welcome Tedial to the Google Cloud Partner Advantage ecosystem, and to help support users to define and implement integrations autonomously.”

smartWork, a cloud-native, no-code media integration platform, democratizes business processes by empowering users to define and implement integrations autonomously—without vendor participation—creating workflows in a simplified, flexible and agile manner, according to the company.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Harmonic says its VOS360 SaaS platform is now available on Google Cloud, bringing additional infrastructure options to media and entertainment companies. By running on Google Cloud, the VOS360 SaaS platform reinforces benefits for video service providers, including unparalleled agility, resiliency, security and scalability for a superior viewing experience, the company said.

"Google Cloud's highly performant and trusted infrastructure is helping media and entertainment companies develop and distribute content intelligently and at great scale," said Kip Schauer, Global Head of Media and Entertainment Partnerships at Google Cloud. "By bringing its innovative VOS360 platform to Google Cloud, Harmonic enables these businesses to deliver differentiated broadcast and direct-to-consumer streaming experiences that contribute to a growing ecosystem of cloud-native, flexible, and agile media supply chains."

As an end-to-end SaaS solution, the VOS360 platform simplifies all stages of media processing and delivery. The VOS360 platform speeds up the creation of linear channels as well as delivery of sports events and live streams directly to consumers or syndication partners. Using the SaaS platform, operators have creative control over content ingest, scheduling, playout, branding, encoding, monetization and the creation of channel variants, with real-time agility.

"We're thrilled to announce that we can now offer our market-leading VOS360 SaaS platform on Google Cloud for a wide range of applications," said Shahar Bar, Senior Vice President, Video Products and Corporate Development, at Harmonic. "Not only is our full tech stack available on Google Cloud, but so are our full DevOps capabilities, providing customers committed to Google Cloud the ability to deploy our full suite of services and cloud technologies. In recent years Google Cloud has placed a strong focus on the Media and Entertainment market, and we're excited to partner with them to bring more customers to the Cloud."

Harmonic will showcase the latest cloud innovations for its VOS360 SaaS platform at Stand 1.B20 at the 2022 IBC Show at the RAI Amsterdam, Sept. 9-13.

RESTON, Va.—At a time when cloud providers are facing heightened security risks, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, Inc. has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google LLC for approximately $5.4 billion. 

Upon the close of the acquisition, Mandiant will join Google Cloud.

Mandiant has more than 600 consultants who currently respond to thousands of security breaches each year and more than 300 intelligence analysts. Those consultants and analysts provide insights for its cyber defense solutions delivered through the managed multi-vendor XDR platform, Mandiant Advantage.

The acquisition will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security, which Google has said are a cornerstone of its cloud-based offerings. Together with Mandiant, Google Cloud will deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with even greater capabilities as well as advisory services helping customers address critical security challenges and stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle, the companies said. 

“Cyber security is a mission, and we believe it’s one of the most important of our generation. Google Cloud shares our mission-driven culture to bring security to every organization,” said Kevin Mandia, CEO, Mandiant. “Together, we will deliver our expertise and intelligence at scale via the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform, as part of the Google Cloud security portfolio. These efforts will help organizations to effectively, efficiently and continuously manage and configure their complex mix of security products.”

“The Mandiant brand is synonymous with unmatched insights for organizations seeking to keep themselves secure in a constantly changing environment,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “This is an opportunity to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite and extend one of the best consulting organizations in the world. Together we can make a profound impact in securing the cloud, accelerating the adoption of cloud computing, and ultimately make the world safer.”

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of Mandiant stockholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close later this year, the companies said.  

LOS ANGELES & SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group (AMG) and Google have announced a new multi-year and multi-platform agreement that will help AMG expand and improve its digital operations with technologies from Google Cloud and give AMG networks additional carriage on YouTube TV. 

As part of the agreement, Google Cloud will provide its cloud infrastructure for AMG’s digital operations and provide technologies that will help AMG speed up the process of building apps, improve its decision-making process and help AMG better connect to its audiences using Google Cloud’s data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning capabilities.

AMG will also expand its YouTube TV carriage in 2022, initially with The Weather Channel and select Allen Media Group Networks. Additional nets will launch at a later date, the companies said. 

Additionally, Allen Media Digital and Google will continue to work together to bring AMG’s streaming offerings to more consumers on the devices of their choice via Google Play to Android phones and tablets, as well as Google TV and other Android TV OS devices.

“All of our Allen Media Group properties are growing at an unprecedented rate, and our partnership with Google is a key step in our continued global transformation," said Byron Allen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Allen Media Group. “By leveraging Google's technology, distribution, marketing, ad sales platforms, enormous capital support, and expertise, Allen Media Group will seamlessly build and enhance our reach and revenue worldwide."

“Allen Media Group’s vast portfolio of properties represents a tremendous opportunity to engage audiences worldwide,” says Don Harrison, president of Global Partnerships, Google. “We’re thrilled to partner with Allen Media Group to offer Google’s secure technology solutions, data analytics and distribution platforms as it continues to transform its business digitally and connect with more viewers globally.”

TORONTO—Firstlight Media has announced that it is now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Leveraging the international reach of Google Cloud Marketplace with its fully cloud-based Gen5 architecture, Firstlight Media can provide faster access to Google Cloud development tools and storage, rapid deployment of the Firstlight Media OTT platform enabling customers to launch new video services quickly and friction-free procurement and consolidated IT spend for simpler accounting, the company said.

“Delivering the fastest possible time to market and the greatest flexibility to the OTT industry is a fundamental business and technology need for OTT providers worldwide,” said Eric Goldstein, head of business development for Firstlight Media. “With availability on the Google Cloud Marketplace, we’re able to streamline processes for our customers so they can more readily reap the benefits of our agile, scalable, extensible and highly performant platform.”

Google Cloud Marketplace allows rapid deployment of functional software packages that run on Google Cloud. It enables cloud procurement, a simplified buying experience and flexible payment options, the company said.

Firstlight Media’s availability on the Google Cloud Marketplace will allow Tier 1 OTT providers to stay ahead of rapid changes in technology and consumer demand by enabling flexible, agile services that can be deployed rapidly and scale for additional capacity as needed. 

Firstlight Media’s platform harnesses rich data analytics, personalization and recommendations to create dynamic, engaging services – all while reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) by as much as 40%, the company said.

“We’re pleased to have Firstlight Media join the Google Cloud Marketplace to offer Google Cloud customers solutions that enable OTT providers to quickly identify and respond to new market opportunities,” said Amy Bray, global head, Google Cloud Marketplace.

More information is available on the company’s website.

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Interra Systems has joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program and is now making its quality control (QC) and monitoring software BATON, BATON Captions and ORION-OTT available on Google Cloud.

The solutions help enable video service providers to adopt cloud workflows, launch traditional broadcast and video streaming services, reduce CapEx cost and eliminate infrastructure maintenance, Interra Systems said.

"A growing number of our customers are eager to transition to the cloud, and joining the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program gives us the opportunity to support those workflow requirements," said Saurabh Jain, director, strategic partnerships at Interra Systems. "The Google Cloud environment is incredibly flexible, scalable, and secure, enabling greater operational and cost efficiencies for our customers embracing the cloud transformation."

Interra Systems solutions can harness Google Cloud offerings like cloud storage, virtual servers for remote computing and advanced media services like translation and content security to enable efficient content monitoring and ensure high-quality audio and video on each screen, the company said.

Running Interra Systems' BATON Captions on Google Cloud simplifies automated subtitling workflows, reducing the need for manual intervention and language translation experts. The integration of Interra Systems' solutions with Google Cloud also enables service providers to monitor ABR feeds encrypted using Google Widevine DRM, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEW YORK—Amagi is partnering with Google Cloud to bring its cloud solutions technology to a wide swath of media and entertainment companies. With Amagi’s tech, broadcasters and streaming TV companies will be able to launch, manage and distribute linear channels on Google Cloud.

The partnership allows customers to deploy Amagi’s cloud playout platform, Cloudport, on Google Cloud to boost 24x7 linear programming.

“Our customers can now power their broadcast workflows using Amagi’s next-gen solutions,” said Kip Schauer, global head of Media & Entertainment, Google Partnerships, Google Cloud. “We are excited to have Amagi as a partner, and to jointly work with them to enable our customers to leverage the full potential of cloud and future-proof their businesses.”

Amagi has a cloud broadcast operations center that can support more than 1,000 linear channels. It also has technical integration with Free Ad Supported Streaming TV (FAST) platforms like Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Xumo, STIRR, Redbox, Vizio, Sling and TiVo.

“We are delighted that this partnership has come at a time when the industries increasingly looking to virtualize operations and adapt to multiscreen viewing,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder, Amagi. “Amagi and Google Cloud present an attractive option for customers to choose from, as they transition to cloud.”

For more information, visit www.amagi.com.  

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google announced the launch of its Transcoder API, the first in a series of new video-focused APIs to assist developers using Google Cloud. 

The new API enables developers to create several consumer streaming formats, including MPEG-4, MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), the company said.

Writing in a blog post, John Pallet, product manager at Google Cloud, said the Transcoder API supports the H.264, VP9 and HEVC codecs as well as full partitioning to enable quick encoding of large video files. 

Google is calling the product release a “preview availability” of the Transcoder API. 

Documentation and pricing are available online, the company said.  

WALTHAM, Mass.—Zixi and Google Cloud are forming an alliance designed to help with the delivery of end-to-end broadcast quality live video solutions over IP using the Google Cloud infrastructure for media, telecommunications and entertainment verticals.

The partnership sees the integration of Zixi’s Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP) with Google Cloud, using the Google Cloud infrastructure and platform capabilities, as well as Zixi APIs. This lets users deploy Zixi Broadcasters using Zixi ZEN Master and have access to telemetry data on the network, transport, intra-cloud delivery and associate edge devices in the end-to-end workflow, per Zixi. 

In addition, Zixi SDVP has been natively integrated with Google Compute Engine storage to facilitate contribution and distribution to content and broadcast partners. Zixi SDVP accepts 17 industry protocols and containers, including Zixi, NDI, RIST, SRT, TCP, BBR, Multipath TCP and WebRTC.

For more information, visit www.zixi.com.  

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Fox Sports is working with Google Cloud on a new system that will help automate the logging, discovering and storing of the network’s video assets by utilizing Google Cloud’s video search and advanced machine learning capabilities.

With Google Cloud’s open architecture and advanced technologies, Fox Sports anticipates to be able to organize, discover and build on petabytes of data and millions of videos it has in its collection, as well as the new content that is being produced daily.

Google’s machine-learning models are being used by Fox Sports to automatically identify and label clips across different categories. The technology also incorporates a user-friendly interface for faster discovery of clips.

“We’re excited to team with Google on this project that will allow Fox Sports to take the next step toward the most state-of-the-art workflow for accessing all of our media,” said Brad Zager, executive producer, executive vice president/head of production & operations at Fox Sports. “It’s been amazing to see all the different tools that Google Cloud will provide our network to transform the way we work, while also helping to make the way we create content so much easier for our production teams.”

LONDON—Synamedia has announced a partnership with Google Cloud, expanding its video network portfolio with a new over-the-top (OTT) as-a-service offering.

The partnership, which enhances service availability and scalability, reduces latency often associated with OTT delivery of live events, such as sports, which can delay streamed content by a full minute as compared to traditional broadcast delivery, the company said.

The new partnership makes available to OTT streaming services and broadcasters the benefit of Google Cloud’s best-in-class low-latency network and Synamedia’s best-in-class low-latency live video delivery solution. Together they can deliver content with only 5 to 7 seconds of latency, which compares well with typical broadcast latency, Synamedia said.

“As the live TV landscape shifts toward OTT delivery, the industry needs technology that matches what viewers have become accustomed to with premium digital TV services,” said Julien Signes, senior vice president and general manager, Video Network at Synamedia. 

Synamedia will rely on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), an enterprise-grade platform for containerized applications, that will make it possible for users to scale as their requirements grow with an automation pipeline that can boost the media processing workflow in minutes and enable fast disaster recovery, the company said. 

The as-a-service video network offering unifies siloed workflows on a single platform, enabling seamless operations and faster deployment, it said.

The new partnership also brings the benefits of the companies’ artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to customers, making it possible for them to deliver better customer experiences. Intelligent pattern matching brings deep content awareness to media workflows, Synamedia added.  

More information is available on the Synamedia website.

SAN MATEO, CALIF.—Accedo, a video experience company, has announced a collaboration with Google Cloud with the goal of providing media and entertainment companies a unified cloud platform to build their own video experiences.

Using Accedo Studio, companies can build customizable video experiences. They can create and update designs and navigations unique to a brand across multiple screens. Accedo Studio’s cloud-based UX management capabilities can configure and test apps in real time. As a result of the partnership, users can adapt the video experience based on factors like data gathered in real-time.

Accedo will be showcasing this latest technology at CES 2018.