MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS The media industry is changing at an unprecedented pace. Shifting trends around where and how consumers view content has permanently disrupted the traditional landscape, with streaming platforms taking a leading position within the industry. Furthermore, a complicated economic environment is keeping pressure on media companies to innovate if they are to succeed despite the challenges they face. The pace and direction of change are unlikely to change soon, suggests Simon Crownshaw, worldwide strategy director for media and entertainment at Microsoft. “There will be a continuation of the move towards digital and away from traditional media,” he predicts. “Traditional media outlets will continue to face challenges in maintaining their audience, and their influence and impact will likely be lessened. However, I think there will still be a place for those outlets, just as there’s still a place for radio despite there now being podcasts, and the marketplace will remain diverse.” However, it is the emergence of artificial intelligence that appears likely to become the most transformative development in the near future. AI technology is now improving exponentially, with new uses emerging all the time, including within the media industry. For Microsoft and its media partners, the road to 2030 therefore promises the realisation of a new world of solutions powered by AI. As a leader in the development of AI services, Microsoft is exploring what new capabilities media companies might be able to unlock with the help of this technology. “AI is the most exciting and expansive conversation we’ve ever had,” says Crownshaw. “Platform creation, customer engagement and technological advancement represent three amazing pillars that Microsoft can drive going forward, backed by the cloud and AI. Our goal is to empower every organisation and every person on the planet to do more, and what I see is that our AI services are allowing us to do that more than ever before. It’s a co-pilot, augmenting human behaviours and interactions, and it’s a truly revolutionary tool that I believe will change entertainment forever.” Among the most significant areas of AI transformation will be in the automation of media workflows. Tasks that previously required significant time and effort to achieve can be drastically streamlined with the help of AI, which Crownshaw sees as augmenting the existing capabilities of creators to allow them to maximise their creativity. “Automation is probably a place where we’ll see the most rapid change, likely in the next two or three years,” he says. “By 2030, media workflows will have been fundamentally revolutionised, with maturing automation enabling rapid content creation and engagement in every corner of media without any loss in quality. While there’ll be some scepticism on the side of the creators initially, what it will give them is a way to create content that they could only ever have imagined. It’s like having an army of people working on it for them, giving them capabilities they’ve never had before. If you couple that with the cloud, it makes the benefits even more tangible than ever before.” “ AI is a truly revolutionary tool that I believe will change entertainment forever” Photo: iStock/Paul Campbell 137
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