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Oovvuu taps IBM Watson for video on demand news

Says Artificial Intelligence will change the way media organisations operate

Oovvuu has unveiled an IBM Watson powered video-on-demand news platform, aimed at connecting viewers to the most relevant video and news content, whilst generating vital new advertising revenues for global media and news organisations.

The Australian start-up, which was founded in 2014, has utilised Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology from IBM to connect with video content from 40 broadcast partners globally, such as ABC, BBC, and Bloomberg, with the most read-news articles derived from IBM Watson.

This Oovvuu technology, with the help of Watson, ‘watches’ videos and ‘reads’ articles before matching them within media outlets.

Specifically, Watson services combine with the Oovvuu technology platform, Compass, to analyse articles as soon as they are published, ‘digesting’ more than 300,000 articles a day to better understand what audiences want when searching or reading about any given topic.

Built on the IBM Cloud with Watson Discovery News and Natural Language Understanding services, Compass is said to be able to match up to 1000 videos to relevant articles in less than a second – more than the 40 videos per day that manual processes can handle. 

According to Oovvuu, media organisations are struggling to maintain advertising revenues, while news and editorial teams are shrinking and the quality of journalism is being challenged.

With news organisations around the world relinquishing advertising revenue to social platforms, the company said building new revenue streams are critical not only to the survival of media and news organisations but also their ability to maintain and deliver quality journalism. 

In addition, the company mentioned that delivering more targeted and relevant content creates higher customer engagement which results in visitors staying on the site for longer and translates to higher revenue returns from advertising.

Oovvuu founder, Ricky Sutton, said moving at speed and adding value to viewers is needed to secure new advertising value for media organisations.

“Global and local news moves fast and by using machine learning, AI and the cloud, we can match videos with breaking news, embedding relevant videos directly into articles in real time,” he said.

IBM chief marketing officer and chief of start-ups, Amanda Johnston-Pell, added that Oovvuu’s technology powered by IBM Watson, offers a unique solution to source and manage video content that provides value for customers, media and news organisations around the globe.

“Digital video is the most pervasive form of communications and a strategic source of content for media and news organisations, and yet it has no value if it cannot be effectively managed and harnessed,” she mentioned. 

IBM's Watson artificial intelligence technology has also recently made its way to places like hospitals and banks. Recently, working with ABB, a maker of industrial plant, IBM has developed a new AI assistant to help factory workers spot manufacturing defects on the production line. 

Masterpass digital payment technology has also started running on many General Motors vehicles with an assist from IBM's Watson.