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Tag: Whisper Report

Whisper Report: How can we leverage the creator economy to drive business growth?
Published to clients: September 29, 2025 ID: TBW2087

Published to Readers: September 30, 2025

Published to Email Whispers: TBD

Public and Video Release: TBD

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

“The creator economy is no longer a niche—it’s a strategic force reshaping media, marketing, and consumer expectations. This report explores how businesses can partner with creators to unlock scalable engagement, rival traditional media in quality and speed, and adapt to a market where authenticity and agility win. Insights from NAB Show 2025 reveal why enabling creators isn’t optional—it’s essential. “

Target Audience Titles
- Chief Data Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Content Officer, Chief Data Officer
- Chief Technology Officer, Chief Digital Officer,
- Head of AI/ML for Media or Marketing, Data Scientists, Creator Partnerships Manager, Director of Content Strategy,
- Product Managers, Content Managers
Key Takeaways
- Creators connect directly with consumers, offering scalable, intimate interactions.
- Businesses must support creators with tools, partnerships, and infrastructure.
- Creators rival traditional media in quality, speed, and production scale.
- The creator economy is reshaping media and consumer expectations.
How can we leverage the creator economy to drive business growth?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the Technologists gathering at NAB Show 2025 held in Las Vegas, Nevada. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how can we leverage the creator economy to drive business growth? As Latakoo’s Jade Kurian shared, “every single person out there is a content creator right and they all want to be able to take their content in put it one place and do the editing do the transfers do the transcoding.” With all these creators, a shift is coming. As Strada’s Michael Cioni observed, “the creator economy is actually the economy we should be we’re following them now we should emulate.” Figure 1 depicts the four levers of the Creator Economy that we will now dive into.

Direct Audience Organic Engagement

Creators connect directly with consumers, offering scalable, intimate interactions. As DeepDub’s Oz Krakowski noted, “I think that in a world of creator economy where independent creators have a direct reach to the consumers ignoring that part of the business is a big mistake.” TightRope Dana Healy argued, “we still need to tie these new technologies to stories and creators are really good at telling stories.” Not only are they great at telling stories, but as LucidLink’s Gergana Berman reported, “we really think that the voices of individual creators and independent creators are really the trusted voices out there.” This trusted, storytelling capabilities with a direct reach results in, as Oz Krakowski observed, “unique product that very unique IP where they can reach different types of audiences and the ability to interact to have that level of interaction that is sometimes very intimate with their audiences is extremely scalable.” In conclusion per Tightrope’s Dana Healy, “the creator economy is still very valuable in the organic reach.”

Business Collaboration & Enablement

Businesses must support creators with tools, partnerships, and infrastructure. There is a critical question all media vendors should be asking themselves, according to Axle.ai’s Sam Bogoch. “How can we enable them to make better content and how can we help them repurpose and retarget that content better.” Latakoo’s Jade Kurian noted, “creator economy to drive business growth for us it’s really about giving creators on one-stop shopping.” Catering to the creator economy is valuable for as Strada’s Michael Cioni proposed, “they are effectively bigger than professional media and entertainment and so what we need to understand is that consumer tastes have changed and what we have been protecting through our history and traditions for a long time is no longer as relevant.” Finally, and perhaps most critical, Cinnafilm’s Dom Jackson contended, “other piece is that we have to adjust to the way that those people do business we have to make sure that our cost models match their revenue models so that we can make a compelling case that we are tools that fit with their businesses.”

Scale, Speed, and Professionalism

Creators rival traditional media in quality, speed, and production scale. Ross’s David Green emphasized, “The truth of the matter is some of these creators are just doing incredible things and their production quality is sometimes better than those of us who think that we’re the you know the you know the enterprise class content professionals. And when you when you look at some of the biggest content creators in the world they’re truly innovating in terms of how they’re creating this amazing content doing it flexibly doing it fast doing it on the run doing it efficiently.” David was not alone in sharing his enthusiasm for the creator economies scale. Per Dell’s Tom Burns, “size of the creator economy dwarfs what we have thought of for the last 100 years as episodic and feature production pipelines.”

Strategic Imperative & Market Shift

The creator economy is reshaping media and consumer expectations. DeepDub’s Oz Krakowski declares companies must collaborate with content creators, “companies and businesses have to do this in order to cannot basically cannot ignore it.” And why would you ignore it for as Axle.ai’s Sam Bogoch asserted, “the creator economy is the biggest growth area in media right now and not just the official creator economy but also things like user generated content for marketing purposes.” And there is a very good reason creator content is growing. Per Strada’s Michael Cioni, “we have to get over that and meet them where they are because the next generation of consumers 10 and 20 years from now will not be going to see movies in theaters they’re not going to watch traditional broadcast television.”

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©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
September 28, 2025
Whisper Report: How can telemedicine be optimized to improve patient care?
Published to clients: September 2, 2025 ID: TBW2064

Published to Readers: September 3, 2025

Published to Email Whispers: October 27, 2025

Public with Video Edition: October 27, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract

This report explores how telemedicine is evolving beyond convenience to deliver deeper, more personalized care. From AI-powered test result interpretation to seamless appointment coordination and continuity across care settings, experts at HIMSS25 reveal how digital tools are reshaping the patient journey. Discover how telemedicine can close access gaps, enhance understanding, and support long-term health outcomes—if systems are designed with the full patient lifecycle in mind.

Target Audience Titles:
- Chief Information Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Data Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Patient Officer
- Clinical Informatics Specialists, Telehealth program manager, Health IT Architect, Clinical Data Analyst, Biomedical Engineer, AI/ML Engineer (Health Focus), Patient Engagement Strategists, Virtual Care Coordinator
Key Takeaways
- AI-enhanced telemedicine can streamline appointment booking, interpret test results, and personalize care recommendations—improving speed, clarity, and access for patients.
- Continuity of care is the next frontier—integrating telemedicine across acute, post-acute, and home health settings to support the full patient journey.
- Access equity improves when telemedicine includes specialists and reaches underserved populations, addressing socioeconomic and geographic barriers.
- Patient understanding is amplified when generative AI explains results and next steps in context, reducing confusion and improving engagement.
How can telemedicine be optimized to improve patient care??

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the health systems technology experts gathering at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2025 Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSS25 for short. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how can telemedicine be optimized to improve patient care? Figure 1 depicts two patient care optimizations one can expects from telemedicine.

Patient Experience

The first benefit many expect to experience with telemedicine is the patient experience. For example, when getting test results, AI can be leveraged for the benefit of the patient to find a doctor. As Aisera’s Daniel Caravajal suggest, “I get my test results it can recommend me doctor that’s specific on that area right and it can book the appointment right it can coordinate the calendars and basically made that experience a lot faster a lot seamless and easier to kind of interact with.” Caravajal further suggests AI can help the patient understand the results. “let’s say you get your test results. We can analyze them and give you suggestions that is the unique part about a genetic AI is not only delivering a unique use case but it’s also understanding the situation. It’s understanding the intent and making further suggestions.” Valuable to note that it is always best to confirm any such information with your actual practitioner! MinttiHealth’s Xiaoqian Zou suggests telemedicine technology can, “give everyone access to the easy health care solution and service.”

Continuity of Care

A critical part of the patient experience that also affects the medical care is that of continuity of care.

As Alexander Group’s Tray Chamberlin advised, “what we think is probably the next evolution in tele medicine is that continuity of care where you’re really thinking about a patient across the entire life cycle be it acute to Post Acute to maybe even home health and integrating that tele medicine it more so that the date and Records can still communicate and we understand the holistic patient Journey.” The significant benefit of telemedicine as Chamberlin further observed, “we’re also meeting the patient where they are and so you know the inclusion of specialists in telemedicine certainly just from a socioeconomic perspective getting access to the right populations that traditionally maybe don’t have access.” For additional background on the benefits and current state of telemedicine, see the Press Conference for OnMed from CES.

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^*When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.

Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

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©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
September 2, 2025
Whisper Report: What are the best practices for integrating cloud technologies in media workflows?
Published to clients: July 16, 2025 ID: TBW2077

Published to Readers: July 17, 2025

Whisper Club Release: December 15, 2025

Public and Video Edition: December 17, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

“Media companies now favor hybrid cloud workflows for flexibility, speed, and cost-efficiency. Open standards ensure interoperability, while strong security protects valuable IP. Experts stress aligning cloud use with business goals, maintaining control and visibility, and using cloud strategically—not universally—to optimize collaboration, performance, and infrastructure investment.”

Target Audience Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer, Chief Digital Officer,
- Chief Data Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Content Officer
- VP Engineering, VP Media Technology, Dir Cloud Strategy, Dir Media Ops, Head of post production, Direct of IT Infrastructure
- Cloud Solution Architects, Media System engineers, DevOps Engineer, Video Platform Engineer, Broadcast Engineer, Post Production Engineer, Media Workflow Specialist, Software Engineer, Storage and Archiving Engineer, SRE
Key Takeaways
- Hybrid workflows balance cloud flexibility with on-prem performance and cost control.
- Open standards ensure seamless integration across media tools and platforms.
- Strong security protects media IP with access control and audit trails.
- Cloud strategy should align with business goals, not just follow trends.
What are the best practices for integrating cloud technologies in media workflows?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the Technology experts gathering at NAB Show 2025 held in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding what are the best practices for integrating cloud technologies in media workflows?

Media and the Cloud

Its been fascinating to watch the Media’s use of the cloud the last handful of years. As Axle.ai’s Sam Bogoch observed, “during covid people would just put things in the cloud willy-nilly because there was no reason to put it anywhere else. They didn’t go to their offices. There was no on premise. There was no concentration of work.” Furthermore, as Dell Technologies’ Tom Burns pointed out, “The promise of cloud was that you didn’t have to own or maintain infrastructure and that’s been awesome.”

Or as Ross’s David Green observed, “they don’t have to have a large upfront capital investment.” Thus when there was no concentration of workers or work, the lack of capital investment and no need for infrastructure maintenance was quite attractive. But its important to keep in mind as Ross’s David Green further explained, “cloud is just a technology – not a solution.” Thus, in the post-COVID world, Media has been rebalancing how as an industry it works with cloud.

Standard Open Systems

Regardless of where you put your workload for what part of the media workflow, the technologies involved must work together. Latakoo’s Jade Kurian gave us a great example, “if I have one company that does transcription let’s say really really well but it’s no connected to my media workflow. Then if I start using that as an enterprise media company, then the problem is I’ve created something that slows down my team even though I’m trying to make it faster for them.” To prevent the slowdown from incompatible tools, Cinnafilm’s Dom Jackson suggested, “to make sure that all of these technologies are using somewhat standardized APIs and ontologies and so on to allow somewhat atomic solutions to be combined easily into larger workflows.” In other words as Magnify’s Ken Ruck summarized, “the best ways to be open and not be a closed system.” The goal, as summarized by Jade Kurian, “it is all about speed -speed from camera to that pane of glass that exists that somebody’s watching on the other end”

Secure Media

Regardless of where your solution executes or where the media resides, protecting that media is absolutely critical. As Eon Media’s Greg Morrow simply stated, “media companies are built on their intellectual property so protection of their IP is incredibly important.” As warned during our coverage of Conference Whispers: NAB Show 2025, just because a technology can share media, doesn’t mean it does so securely with an audit trail. Lucidlink’s Gergana Berman further cautioned, “a lot of providers out there might claim that they have a very secure solution, but you have to check for yourself.” If this is an area your team is concerned with, clients should book an inquiry before purchasing the technology. In 2025, it is also critical to check the terms and conditions of any AI technologies leveraged. As Gergana Berman further explained, “ make sure their terms and conditions are not saying they can use your media copyrighted media.” Or as the saying goes, don’t use free products for when something is free – you are the product. In this case the valuable IP is the product of the media company for which you are working.

Some solutions have built in capabilities to assist in protecting your intellectual property. Greg Morrow pointed out that Eon Media’s solution has, “three levels of watermarking that we produce So we have produce a visible watermark on the asset and an invisible watermark.” Leostream’s Karen Gondoly perhaps best summarized the totality of the need, “I need to have control of my data. I need to have control of who has access to it. I want to secure that data so I want to make sure that I’m authorizing users correctly. I want to make sure that I’m using zero trust principles when I’m providing access to people. I need visibility. I want to make sure I always know who has access to my data what they’re doing with it where they’re accessing it from.” In other words, I don’t just need to be able to control it, I need a full audit trail of the five w’s for my data. Who accessed, What was accessed, When accessed, Where accessed and Why accessed as depicted in Figure 1.

Hybrid Solutions

Today, most media companies have settled into hybrid architectures involving a combination of on premise and cloud technologies. Strada’s Michael Cioni best summarized, “no one can actually put everything in one cloud. There’s too many collaborators. There’s too many different clouds. There’s too many pros and cons to clouds and nobody has enough money to store everything there So I think the best practices for integrating cloud into your workflow is to actually look for alternative solutions that may not use the cloud in the traditional ways and figure out how to collaborate across clouds versus putting everything in one place.” So what should go where? One can observe, those with on-premise based solutions have different answers vs those with predominantly cloud based solutions. Ross’s David Green recommends, “to not start with I want to do cloud the key is to start with why do I want to use cloud and then figure out who can help you solve those.”

SNS’s Alex Hlvarty cautions, “we can’t control internet outages or data breaches or things like that are mitigated by making sure that you keep your own assets on site in your possession but then utilizing cloud for its very clear benefits as far as making things available to people all over the world through one single portal.” Axle.ai’s Sam Bogoch also likes to keep things he is actively working on close. “on premise the things that you’re immediately working on because it does not make sense to keep asking for them politely from the cloud when you’re getting work done much faster on premise and meanwhile things like archive and backup clearly belong in the cloud.” From a capitalization perspective, Dell Technologies Tom Burn’s recommends an extension of a common metaphor. “let’s think of the old rocks pebbles sand metaphor where rocks are the fully capitalized on prem infrastructure that you need to keep 99.9% utilized and the pebbles are the project-based uses of compute and storage that aren’t part of your base commit and don’t hit your ybudget and the sand is the pure burstable joy that is the public hyperscalers. We’re looking at hybrid workflows that combine all three screening up.”

Once again, clients should schedule an inquiry to review your hybrid media architecture against your organizational priorities.

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©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

Research available only to clients at this time.
July 16, 2025
Whisper Report: How can we ensure compliance with new and evolving Cyber Physical security regulations?
Published to clients: July 10, 2025 ID: 2075

Published to Readers: July 11, 2025

Email Whispers Release: TBD

Public and Video Release: TBD

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

Cyber-physical security, like healthcare tech, must carefully manage PII. Experts highlight privacy-preserving biometrics, user-controlled consent, and anonymous face matching. Regulatory compliance, such as GDPR, drives standardization and innovation. As laws vary by region, adaptable and consistent global system architectures are essential for scalable, secure, and compliant operations.

Analysis available only to clients at this time. Join the YouTube Whisper Club at the Whisper Club Level to get access to the video edition today.

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Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2026 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, Whisper Club, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
July 10, 2025
Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?
Published to clients: July 3, 2025 ID: 2079

Published to Readers: July 4, 2025

Email Whispers Released: August 11, 2025 8am

Public and Video Edition Released: August 11, 2025 11am

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

“Integrating AI customer service with existing IT systems starts by setting clear business goals. AI should enhance, not disrupt, current workflows and streamline real-time support. Every organization has unique systems, so tailored integration is essential. A major challenge is fragmented data—making robust pipelines and clean, synchronized data critical. Accurate timestamps and system compatibility across platforms are key to ensuring effective AI performance and a smooth digital transformation journey.”

Target Audience Titles:
- Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, VP/Director of IT Operations, Enterprise Architects
- Chief Customer Officer, VP/Director of Customer Services/Success, Contact Center Operation Managers
- Solution Architects, DevOps & IT Administrators, Customer Support Agents, Data Scientists and ML Engineers
Key Takeaways
- Start with clear business goals so AI enhances workflows without causing disruptions.
- Tailor integration to your unique tech environment to avoid inefficiencies.
- Reliable, clean, and synchronized data pipelines are essential for effective AI-driven customer service.
How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the technologists gathering at Customer Connect Expo 2025 held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure? As Ford’s Dr. Kalifa Oliver shared, “first we need to break down our needs and our goals and figure out which pieces of AI actually build efficiencies in our IT systems because right now there are too many systems that are fragmented.” With ALL AI projects, it is best to start with the business goal not the technology. We do not want to spend resources to integrate technology that goes unused. Furthermore, the context of the business goal helps guide engineers when they have design choices to make.

Customer Service Workflows

AI in Customer Service is all about optimizing and improving the customer service workflow to lead to maximum customer satisfaction. As Zaon’s Jason Kaufman shared, “using artificial intelligence tools within the organization to actually help drive and make more efficient the processes that go into place in order to support good customer service. For example, leveraging artificial intelligence to actually analyze chats real time community forums real time. Actually monitoring that (the communities) helping to gain insights about what your customers have questions about so that you can leverage the AI to actually generate the knowledge on the fly to actually provide that (information removing confusion) back to them real time as if it’s another person on that community thread.” The nonobvious challenge in achieving this solution is best described by Claritiv’s CEO Sean Gigremoss. “Everybody has workflows. Every company is unique. What tools do they use? What products do they use now? Do we need to build it?” In other words, every organization has a unique, highly mixed environment with varying degrees of maturity both in the technology itself and the organization’s ability to deploy technology.

Verse.ai’s Zac Brooksher recommends focusing on complimenting the current workflows and processing. “We can integrate AI driven customer service solutions using full funnel metrics understanding all of the conversations the timestamps the channels the appropriate team members what next steps are all integrating into existing systems and processes just to complement what the current workflows and data processing is today like.” Any technology not realizing it is complimenting an existing process will instead create process interrupts. The distinction really is a big difference.

The Challenge: Data is everywhere!

As Claritiv’s Sean Gigremoss shared, data is everywhere! “They make it so easy for us to integrate because in the end that’s important because all the data are in this different .. disparate systems. You need information from Salesforce you need information from zoom you need information from slack you need information from your database you need information from your customer’s database so to be able to do that you need to make sure that you’re using the tools or you’re partnering with companies that help you so that you can focus on what you do best.”

But the data isn’t just everywhere, it comes from everywhere. The first obvious location was shared by Enthu.ai’s Atul Grover, “we integrate with the telephony at the dialer.” And the rest such as the web and email communications, “we ingest that using an API driven environment.” Diabolocom specializes in capturing all that occurs between the customer and the organization on mobile devices. As Diabolocom’s Benjamin Shakespeare shared, “with our mobile solution that we are about to release

the market .. So all field reps anybody who is using a cell phone today with every interaction they have on their phone our AI will then score that call transcribe it and push it directly into the CRM So any lack of compliance that you are seeing today in your organization from people that are not sitting behind a computer that will be no longer.”

Where the magic happens!

Now that we understand we are complimenting the existing customer experience workflows for the benefit of the customer experience and that data is everywhere, what can we do? As Macy’s Siva Kannan Ganensan shared, “you need to make sure your data pipeline is very robust when we talk about all this AI integration data is the core so make sure the data is cleansed and always readily available ready to serve with that we’ll be able to integrate an into your existing architecture or in your organization.”

Figure 1. Compliment Workflows & Leverage Robus Data Fabric

It’s all about the data infrastructure! You need robust data pipelines as part of your data fabric to seamlessly integrate any new AI offering as depicted in Figure 1. AND you must ensure data quality. For example, data quality is paramount when dealing with timestamps of customer communications. What time zone is your organizational standard? Do your IT systems work in that time zone, and do you know what systems provide timestamps in other formats or time zones? Is that true for any and all corporate acquisitions feeding data into the system? Is the system designed to handle the variety of daylight savings time scenarios? Are all the clocks adjusted for daylight savings automatically or manually? Finally, are the timestamp clocks aligned? To the second or to the minute? It’s valuable to know if you can look at time as fact or approximation in your organization. If your organization is going through any type of digital transformation, it is critical to get the best advice available to ensure your success. Ensure your success by scheduling your inquiry with a TBW Advisors advisor before starting any critical phase of your digital transformation journey. Get the smartest advice available and leverage our firsthand experience to your advantage.

Related playlists
1. Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure
2. Conference Whispers: Customer Connect Expo 2025
Corporate Headquarters

2884 Grand Helios Way

Henderson, NV 89052

©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
July 3, 2025
Whisper Report: How can AI and machine learning transform media and entertainment?
Published to clients: May 29, 2025 ID: 2076

Published to Readers: May 30, 2025

Published to Email Whispers: July 7, 2025

Video edition: July 7, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract

AI is transforming media and entertainment, reshaping workflows and automating the tedious. This shift isn’t new—it’s an evolution already well underway. While concerns about disruption persist, AI is proving to be a powerful tool that enhances efficiency, making content more accessible and refining quality. From metadata enrichment to streamlined production, AI empowers professionals by eliminating the mundane and allowing more focus on creativity. Rather than replacing jobs, it shifts how work gets done, seamlessly integrating with existing processes to unlock new possibilities in storytelling, production, and distribution. The industry is adapting, and AI is at the heart of that transformation.

Target Audience Titles:

Chief Technology Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Chief Digital Officer

Chief Data Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Content Officer

Head of AI and Machine Learning, Data Scientists

Product Managers, Content Managers, Sound Engineers, Distribution Engineers

Production Technologists, Streaming Platform Developers

Chief Technology Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Chief Digital Officer

Key Takeaways
- AI is transforming workflows, automating the tedious, and reshaping media and entertainment.
- Efficiency gains let creators focus on storytelling while AI enhances accessibility and searchability.
- AI isn’t replacing jobs—it’s evolving how work gets done, integrating seamlessly into production processes.
How can AI and machine learning transform media and entertainment?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the Technology experts gathering at NAB Show 2025. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how can AI and machine learning transform media and entertainment?

Setting the Stage

As DeepDub’s Oz Krakowski stated, “We see is a lot of the work that was done before is now done in different.” These changes have already hit the headlines for as Dell Technologies’ Tom Burns pointed out, “Everybody’s all concerned with Gen AI but of course the writers and actors strikes were all about that.” Thus this AI transformation is not new but rather is currently underway. Latakoo’s Jade Kurian offered this perspective. “The question now is how do we do this thoughtfully? How do we do it in a way that we don’t compromise ethics – where we don’t compromise people’s jobs? How do we make it flow back and forth where we take advantage of AI and machine learning to make our lives easier, make our lives better, and make entertainment and media better.” Cinnafilm’s Dom Jackson suggests we take another step back to gain a larger perspective, “There’s a lot of fear around AI and those technologies and in that sense, I see those as part of a continuum of ongoing automation processes that have been going on since the industrial revolution. Everyone’s always scared when something new comes along and then very quickly it becomes normal and it empowers us to work in new and different and usually more efficient ways.” See Figure 1 for the Cornucopia of AI use cases suggested. Let’s explore some of those new, and different, more efficient ways.

AI Use Cases in Media

One thing is for certain, there is no shortage of opportunity for AI to positively impact the media and entertainment sector. The favorite use case among all users, as Strada’s Michael Cioni put it, “AI is best for our industry as a utility form to do the mundane tasks .. we need AI that automates mundane tasks like color correcting sound noise reduction, video audio noise reduction, face tagging, locations, objects, emotions – those are all the things that no one wants to sit and log footage. AI can log it for us.” Or per Ross’s David Green, “AI is going to make us more efficient and more effective and let us focus on what we love doing which is creating amazing content.” No matter which perspective you prefer – the elimination of the mundane or the freeing up to do the fun parts – AI is here to stay in media workflows. As Dell’s Tom Burns observed, “Machine learning has already transformed media and entertainment in so many invisible ways from security to fixing single pixel defects to all kinds of low-level network functions and automated provisioning.”

When it comes to all that stored media, there are plenty of suggestions of how AI can assist as well. Per SNS’s Alex Hlavaty, “It actually can be an incredibly helpful buddy to sort through the stuff we don’t want to do parse through petabytes worth of information. Help us find assets more quickly and just interact with our data in a much more meaningful way while reducing man hours doing things that are laborious.” . Eon Media’s Greg Morrow observed, “our customers have large libraries of video files that only have a file name or have just a a small title. We really enriched those assets with information to make those assets more usable by identifying people places things emotional sentiment um ethnicity as part of those assets.” Dell Technologies’ Tom Burns denoted, “One of the GEN AI things that is proving to be useful is for companies that have large archives or studios that have that have the rights holders to a lot of content, using AI to extend the metadata and inform them of what they actually have in their archive allows them to make that more searchable and therefore more monetizable on.” Increasing metadata for the purpose of search and the related business cases that come from having truly searchable content is a common theme. As Axle.ai’s Sam Bogoch simply stated, if, “they can’t find it they can’t reuse it.”

In some of the use cases such as sound editing, it has completely transformed the task at hand. As DeepDub’s Oz Krakowski observed, “just like you cannot imagine a graphics designer not using Photoshop it’s unheard of right however 20 years ago this was extremely questionable nowadays thinking of doing voice design and editing dialogues without using AI.” Ross’s David Green offers additional suggestions, “things like camera tracking so instead of having to every single second manually figure out where things are and do manual keying you know markers and those sort of things we can use AI to automatically be able to do those things .. instead of having to flip through a manual.” Dell’s Tom Burns observed, “when you render your VFX AI upsampling has gotten so good now that you can render at 2K and up to 4K and it looks better than if you rendered at 4K in the first place.” Wow! Upsampling rendering better than if it was 4k in the first place – now that is an improvement – by definition. Localization is another area that has been drastically impacted by AI. Today, with AI tools such as Yella Umbrella are, “making content accessible to users that wouldn’t have access to it normally either because there’s no one to localize that content or just because the content that they want to access is not available in the accessibility form that they prefer.” If the form you prefer isn’t about language but more about duration, Magnify’s Ken Ruck shares today one can, “edit automatically (and) create clips automatically.” Clients may recall our coverage of Conference Whispers: NAB Show 2023 when automated shorts were first highlighted.

One of the most treasured advancements is that of workflow automation. As Eon Media’s Greg Morrow stated, “workflow automation to improve the efficiency of a media organization in order for the people in the organization to create higher value content and less of the drudgery work.” In other words, AI can transform Media and Entertainment by enabling all to do more with less. But if you are worried about your job, Cinnafilm’s Dom Jackson assured, “strangely ultimately people always end up having jobs they’re different jobs but people always end up with plenty of work.”

Related playlists
1. Whisper Report: How can AI and machine learning transform media and entertainment?
2. Conference Whispers: NAB Show 2025
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©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
May 29, 2025
Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
Published to clients: February 27, 2025 ID: 2057

Published to Readers: February 28, 2025

Published to Email Whispers: March 1, 2025

Video Edition: March 2, 2025

Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

Abstract:

To manage tariff costs in the supply chain, a two-pronged approach is recommended: cleaning up data for better decision-making and optimizing cost parameters. Digital transformation is crucial for navigating tariff challenges. Additionally, avoiding hidden costs, moving on-shore, reducing cycle costs, and leveraging free trade zones can help. Utilizing tools to understand total landed costs and diversifying suppliers and logistics providers are also key strategies.

What is the dominant advice?

We took the most frequently asked and most urgent questions straight to the logistics and supply chain experts in the industry. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how to manage tariff costs in one’s supply chain. For any professional^* even tangentially involved in anything to do with fulfillment, supply chain, and logistics, it is easy to become panicked at the talk of tariffs. Beyond supply chain and logistics professionals, operations and financial executives are impacted by what is going on as are the technologists and data experts that are required to thrive in such environments. As 4flow’s Adam Poch shared, “You have to have a nimble and agile supply chain to navigate that”. Or as FreightFacts’ Lance Healy put it, “our job is to react, anticipate if we can, but apply technology. “ This suggests a two-pronged approach. Clean up your data so you can optimize costs.

Cleaning up your Data

Vizion’s Ben Tracy suggests and offers, “transparent and easy to access data to empower intelligent supply chain decisions. “ Yes, digital transformation is required to successfully navigate this challenge. If you have not done so there is no more time to wait. Many solutions expect the data has been collected for a technology team to clean and provide intelligence over. But logistics data is not transactional data nor does it have a history of being clean and collected like financial data. In fact, logistics and supply chain has some of the messiest data with many suggesting over 30% dirty and useless. Research regarding a large variety of vendors involved in cleaning and digitizing logistics and supply chain can be found in Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025 and Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024. This is a significant area of expertise offered to our clients through inquiry privileges.

Optimize and Managing Costs Parameters

For those somewhere on the digital transformation maturity scale, the problem regarding managing tariffs costs now boils down to continuing to find ways to transform and manage supply costs. As summary of the 6 actions to manage tariff costs can be found in Figure 1.

Avoid Hidden Costs

Sensos’s CEO shared a story about how they onboarded a customer who was blindsided with hidden costs when products went through Africa without their knowledge. Per TrafficTech’s Hilary Ambro, “work with a customs broker with is vested in and understands your trade lanes as you are moving products so you can minimize those costs.”

Move on-shore

An obvious way to reduce costs associated with tariffs is to move on-shore. Hoptek’s Sean Maharai suggests, “working towards on shore, raw materials and ability to manufacture (and assemble) on shore”. Or as Mark Richards at AWI Logistics put it, “People are redesigning their supply chains. Instead of distribution in Canada or Mexico servicing the US, they are bringing the distribution back to the US.”

Reduce part of cycle costs

Any and every place one can reduce costs is valuable in such uncertain times. An exciting solution that can impact your cost per pallet offering next day delivery at ground shipping costs is Aeros. Aeros is a EVTOL (electric, vertical take of and landing) vehicle that appear like a blimp and hovers over urban areas with the goods to deliver, drones and related charging stations with line of sight to deliver and drone operators to operate. Rye Akervik shared that their company, Shipsi is an aggregator of last mile and middle mile networks. Shipsi’s solution is to, “rate shop those networks, find the best partner, the best SLA and manage that customer experience. “ Verity’s Taylor Wilson recommends, “utilizing free trade zones to delay the Tariffs and related payments to improve your cashflow.” Finally, if you are traveling between Canada and USA, there is a new solution coming online Fall of 2025. As Manny Paiva of the Gordie Howe International Bridge shared, “You have a Highway to Highway route connection that will allow transport trucks to get their goods across the border within ~11 seconds!”

Reduce total landed costs

If an organization has reached digitization maturity, they can leverage top tools to understand their total landed costs. As Yikun Shao of Alibaba.com shared, they offer solutions with “tools to provide transparency to all of costs related to cross border movement of goods so they can make more informed decisions.” But Alibaba.com doesn’t stop there. They also provide tools to directly enable “you diversity of suppliers as well as logistic providers so you have options available. “At the end of the day, managing costs associated with Tariffs is a subset of managing the total landed costs of any goods.

^*When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.

Related playlists
1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
2. Conference Whispers: Manifest 2024
©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.
February 28, 2025
Whisper Report: Six Use Cases Enabled by Data Validation Platforms

Online Research Summary

ABSTRACT

When selecting technologies for your data architecture, it is important to understand common use cases enabled by the technology. This research examines six use cases enabled by data validation and the architecture capabilities used to support the use case. To this end, we examine the validation of ingestion and transformations, the data migration, as well as cloud update use cases. The use cases for production monitoring, completeness of data sets, the ability to compare BI tools’ values, as well as data DevOps are also evaluated.

April 6, 2020
Whisper Report: Five Differences with Sensor Data

Online Research Summary

ABSTRACT

Many IT departments are beginning to work with sensor data – but sensor data is different from transaction data. Sensor data may arise out of IoT applications or operations engineering integrations with IT. The consequences of application failure with sensor data may result in the loss of millions of dollars, explosions, or death. Sensor data is not accurate, and all values must be cross-checked before critical action is taken. Sensor data is voluminous and is often stored in time-series databases. It is important not to confuse tag databases with metadata tags. Finally, sensor data often lacks all context which must be added.

January 2, 2020
Whisper Report: Decision Integrity Requires Data Validation

Online Research Summary

ABSTRACT

Digitally transformed organizations expect reliable, data-driven decisions, but data-driven decisions require reliable data if the business is to maintain decision integrity. Don’t stop short with only providing data quality that is responsible for standardizing data. All data integrations must be verified and transformations must be validated to ensure decision integrity. Historical methods of “stare and compare” or leveraging SQL scripts are not efficient, nor do they meet governance requirements. Some modern data validation tools can validate even the largest data sets.

October 19, 2019