Can your underlying OTT architecture support the sizzle of new technology at IBC?

Now that the curtain is going up on IBC2023, the RAI is alive with glimpses of the future of media and entertainment: technological advances, cutting-edge products and comprehensive solutions that can improve the ability of the industry to create, distribute, and monetise audio and video content. Underpinning all of them is this salient fact:

Architecture really does matter.

With Generative AI on everyone’s shopping list this year, having the right architecture is more essential today than ever before. Whether it’s content creation, content distribution, or the multiplatform world of content everywhere, the business and market success of every media and entertainment company in Amsterdam relies on the ability to get to market faster, better, and more cost-effectively than competitors.

If the streaming business has learned anything recently, it’s that the siloed infrastructures that proliferated in the early years of multiplatform viewing are being surpassed by nimbler, cloud-based architectures. Many OTT providers learned the hard way that their legacy systems didn’t have the flexibility to scale up or down with consumer demand or to pivot to new business models.

When ChatGPT exploded into the limelight last year, the Generative AI shock waves rippled through the technology community. Bloomberg Intelligence predicts that the Generative AI market will grow to $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years, and that demand for Generative AI products could add upwards of $280 billion in new software revenue. Research and Markets found that the media and entertainment sector accounted for the maximum share of revenue – 22.7% – largely as a result of Generative AI use in advertising and shopping.

The question du jour in every streaming executive boardroom now is “How are we leveraging AI and Generative AI to improve our business outcomes?” Quite simply, the industry is keenly aware that ignoring Gen AI’s ability to spawn new creative forces, new efficiencies, and new ways to engage and monetise subscribers means leaving opportunity on the table.

Having the right architecture and maximising the power of Generative AI really do go hand-in-hand. Visionary implementations will go nowhere if they’re lashed to an outmoded OTT platform. Without platforms that are flexible, agile, and scalable, Generative AI platforms will be unable to deliver the time-to-market and cost-efficiencies that are being promised.

In the Generative AI era, OTT providers evaluating platform choices need to ask themselves five questions:

• At a time when being ahead of the competition is crucial, is the architecture open and will it enable me to rapidly access and integrate with every AI marketplace?
• To ensure satisfactory outcomes for my subscribers, is there a modular workflow that ensures reliability at scale so I can tackle the toughest sports, media and other AI use cases?
• Keeping complexity to a minimum and streamlining integration is important; is the orchestration truly end-to-end and can it successfully enable a unified AI and data strategy?
• Is the architecture truly cloud-native and is my infrastructure scalable, so that I can leverage the vast libraries of AI toolkits and make them accessible to my subscribers?
• My primary concern is my service; is my technology partner looking out for me by building a platform allow me that protects my data and accelerates my product roadmap?

To truly harness the power of Generative AI, the industry needs platforms that can leverage an endless procession of existing third-party applications to turbocharge streaming ecosystems. OTT providers need infrastructures that can streamline integration processes to expedite the ability of Generative AI to drive the widest variety of media and customer use cases. Think deep metadata, content discovery, personalisation, content creation, process automation, and multi-channel monetisation.

Cloud-native, API-driven OTT platforms with open architectures, modular workflows and end-to-end orchestration already have made huge inroads in the streaming industry. When plugged into Generative AI marketplaces, they create continuous cycles of improvements against desired business outcomes. Architecture enables orchestration which enables the ecosystems that enable the gateways to marketplaces.

Technology change has driven platform change throughout the brief but spectacular history of streaming, creating waves of disruption that have altered the face of the industry. Each wave has shaken the status quo, created new winners, and completely transformed the lives of consumers.

This week it seems as though new technologies – particularly Generative AI – are winking at us from every corner of the RAI. Great things are ahead for media and entertainment, so long as we keep our eyes on the prize and remember that when it comes to business and market success, architecture really does matter.