ISE 2024: What more can be done to address growing skills and talent shortages?

Thomas Thomson, Senior Analyst, Video Technology at Omdia discusses the importance of trust in media, the tension between app-led and content-led strategies in recommendation discovery and the value of user data and the potential role of AI in delivering personalisation by default.

Combining the flexibility of rapidly maturing cloud solutions with the immediacy and reliability of on prem is an increasingly popular choice, says Paddy Taylor, particularly around video acquisition. However, the wider industry needs to focus on improving education for the next generation of engineers and operators for these advanced technologies, he believes, as current education focuses on traditional live production roles rather than on efficiency and automation, which are crucial for the future.

While virtual production tools and increasingly potent AR solutions are revolutionising and democratising what is possible in live event coverage, Kemal also believes that industry education needs to be improved, especially around mid-career training rather than chasing the latest technology chimera.

With the industry pushing beyond the realms of traditional media and entertainment, where everyone is a content creator, Kathleen Barrett, CEO at Backlight has seen a growing demand for reliable and flexible media asset management solutions (MAMS).

AI is delivering real and transformative benefits, especially in the areas of speech-to-text for real-time subtitle generation and enriching metadata using larger language models. However, those benefits need to be weighed against the broad implications of AI on the industry and society, with concerns including job roles, intellectual property, data security, and ethical considerations.