Building Unified Content IntelligencE

Key Takeaways

• Media organizations are replacing disconnected workflows with a unified intelligence layer that connects planning, production, media management, storage, and analytics
• Teams are automating actions, improving efficiency, and discovering new revenue opportunities with AI-powered workflows that run on shared metadata and contextual data
• Broadcasters are gaining end-to-end visibility into content cost, operational efficiency, audience performance, and return on investment—without replacing existing specialist tools
• Avid Content Core acts as a system of record across content, people, costs, assets, and performance, enabling smarter business decisions

Media infrastructure has never been easy. Production workflows have always been complex and often disconnected. Specialized systems designed for individual workflows often operated in isolation, adding even more complexity and fragmentation. Then add to that the macro-economic reality of company mergers and acquisitions and a desire to bring disparate solutions together, all in the name of efficiency and maximizing investments, and the problem compounds itself.

Having a set of proven products which are critical touchpoints for creativity is one thing. For a long time, that was enough. But now, connected solutions that create one shared system of intelligence where metadata, decisions, assignments, assets, and outcomes all coexist is what is required.

From Legacy to the Future

In a recent discussion as part of the DPP’s Media Supply Festival in New York, these challenges were outlined by one of the world’s major broadcasters. They outlined how they’re delivering at speed to move from a legacy of disparate, disconnected systems to a more connected infrastructure using intelligent workflows that connect teams, systems, and decisions.

They are not replacing the specialist technologies of vendors; they are unifying access to drive business decisions. This seeming panacea is not something which is years away. They are moving at pace to deliver this as a reality today and in the months ahead.

The needs of the business are such that the timescales for projects are being compressed, and an iterative, innovative approach, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques is enabling them to quickly move toward to their desired outcomes.

And they are not alone. The challenges and solutions which they outlined are mirrored across the world as broadcast organizations wrestle with the need to maintain high-quality production while also seeking to maximize their use of emerging technologies. Simply throwing everything away is not an option unless they are new entrants to the market. So they are seeking a way to modernize without disruption instead.

The Intelligence Layer

Avid is addressing this customer demand through the delivery of Avid Content Core—an intelligence layer acting as a Content Data Platform which becomes the system of record across assets, stories, versions, people, and costs.

Content Core has an open approach to integration and innovation. This is delivered through well-documented APIs and features intelligent business capabilities. This includes making use of connections to MCP Server (programs that expose specific capabilities to AI applications through standardized protocol interfaces) to assemble those historically disconnected parts of the workflow and turn them into a seamless powerhouse of production and data.

Avid’s product portfolio has always offered a connected ecosystem. Now those products deliver more value sitting under the Content Core umbrella.

• Wolftech News, iNEWS, and MediaCentral become the upstream sources of intent, focusing on what was planned and created, why, by whom, and for which audience
• Media Composer and Pro Tools become value creation, metadata, and decision surfaces connected to planning, assets cost, and performance
• Avid NEXIS becomes the driver of media optimization, leveraging access data, workspace usage, storage utilization, and media movement

Avid’s CEO, Wellford Dillard, summed up the shift in this approach. “This is not just about asset management. This is not another MAM. This is not about creativity alone. We are moving far beyond conversations about managing media and creating content and now have the insights to help maximize the ROI on media assets, drive advertising dollars, and expand audience reach.”

He added, “Avid’s ability to become the system of record for media production economics represents a tectonic shift in the industry. We’ve heard customers use the phrase ‘Holy Grail’ when they see what we can do now with Content Core.”

Tracking Costs. Delivering Value.

But why does this matter? It matters because all the touchpoints are interconnected.

• For finance, it highlights who the organization pays and why
• For production, it tracks what work was assigned and what was created and published
• For analytics, it highlights what went where and how it performed

This means that for the first time, customers will be able to see the true cost and value of their content. Avid Content Core will ensure that every asset, TV show, franchise, or platform can now be viewed in different ways.

• What was the full cost?
• Who were the contributors and what was the mix of staff/freelance?
• What storage and infrastructure was used to make the content?
• What was the distribution footprint?
• How did it perform with different audiences on different platforms?
• What was the impact, relative to the cost?

This matters to every part of the business: the editorial team can make better creative decisions; the CFO can understand the cost of every asset; the CEO can direct strategy to ensure the right money is spent on the right productions; the operations team can optimize their capacity and productivity through visibility of the full chain. In this instance, Avid Content Core becomes that system of record.

Dillard said, “By connecting planning, creation, media management, storage and media movement, and analytics, this moves the systems beyond a production pipeline into a shared, contextual data layer that links cost to content.”

The AI Dividend

By delivering on this approach, Avid Content Core can use AI to become a driver of action throughout the professional media production environment. It can provide:

• Context which AI can use
• Actions which AI can take
• Deliver revenue driven by AI

Connected workflow data will become reusable customer-facing intelligence. Avid owns the pieces of the puzzle, delivering solutions from planning and ingest to creation, delivery, and distribution. It is worth noting that the approach also differs from others in the market, where the risk of unmetered cloud usage is high for tasks such as rendering or transcoding or publication.

While others focus on niche solutions or bolting-together Frankenstein science projects featuring multiple, often competing products, keen to lay the blame at each other’s door when things go wrong, Avid is focused on delivering predictability, reliability, and cost consciousness to customers.