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Ooyala: AI, Blockchain, AR and VR Usage All Growing

Usage and demand for artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) continue to grow and are among the most significant technology trends being seen in the media industry, according to Ooyala.

“Advanced applications in data and automation are becoming more widespread, particularly in newsrooms,” Paula Minardi, Ooyala senior content strategist, said June 26 during a webinar discussing the findings of the company’s recently-released State of the Media Industry 2018 report.

As part of that trend, “AI use is increasing,” she said, citing a recent Reuters Institute report that found 59% of news publishers surveyed were using the technology to improve content recommendations, while 39% were using AI to automate workflows.

“We’re seeing many examples of these artificial intelligence uses across regions,” she said, also pointing to growing interest in connected home and voice technologies, including Amazon Echo.

Blockchain is “another rapidly evolving, data-driven technology that companies are pursuing to improve things like transactions, security and transparency,” she said.

Data is more important than ever because, for a company, “the ability to know what your existing customers are most engaged with and what they find useful or not useful will be the key to retaining users, whether to a subscription platform or to an ad-supported platform” — and regardless of whether the content is entertainment, news or sports, Jim O’Neill, Ooyala principal analyst, said.

Immersive technologies including AR and VR, meanwhile, “continue to make their mark in the media world to enhance stories – whether they’re overlaying our physical reality or replacing it altogether,” Minardi pointed out.

“The VR market is set to reach nearly $27 billion by 2022,” while the AR market is expected to reach nearly $134 billion by 2021, she said. But obstacles remain. “VR challenges tend to remain with user experiences, lack of high-quality content, cost and tech issues with the production and headsets, and monetization,” according to Minardi.

But she said: “Branded content has been one gateway to help with the ladder. VR 360 ads were found in one study to perform better than traditional ads.”

AR interest continues to grow because it “tends to be more accessible at this point to producers, advertisers and users” than VR, she said.

Many companies are increasingly eyeing immersive technology closely because they’re “looking for that next big thing – the thing that draws folks in,” O’Neill said.

The AR market, however, remains larger than the VR market for now because AR “works – it works now, it’s real, it’s useful, it’s relatively cheap, it actually does a great deal to enhance user experience and it’s something that’s seeing a rapid uptake and already has made significant contributions to publishers,” he said, adding: “VR, on the other hand, remains kind of a ‘what if’ – something that we’d all like to see take off.”

Standing in the way of VR taking off are “significant hurdles” that include user interfaces that often require “uprooting existing programming procedures entirely,” the need for users to minimize their movement while using it to avoid “motion or VR sickness,” huge increases in file sizes (up to 300 times the size) and a “huge increase in cost” to make content, he said.

But many companies continue to invest heavily in VR because it “represents the potential for significant disruption and brand-new revenue streams to replace others” that are declining, he said.

Summing up some of the other main findings of the report, which was released in May, Minardi said video continues to take up more of consumers’ media time and mobility continues to “rule,” while interest in social media also continues to be strong.

Social media now accounts for more than 30% of online time, according to the report.

Content publishers, meanwhile, continue to be faced with “pivoting their strategies and innovating in a competitive space where much of their livelihood and revenue goal attainment have been dependent on others,” according to Ooyala.

The media industry is “facing battles on every front and finding that it’s really paramount to have an integrated, data-driven strategy to address all of these issues,” Minardi said on the webcast.