How AI streaming tools are reshaping streaming services

Vimeo Staff
Two people speaking to each other overlaid by a screen that says stream health showing a good quality video stream in progress

AI tools can improve streaming by heightening video quality, autogenerating captions, and enhancing platform algorithms. With user-friendly tools entering the market every day, there’s never been a better opportunity to use AI to streamline video production and maximize your engagement.

In this guide, you’ll learn how streaming platforms use AI to improve their services and why AI is so beneficial for users. You’ll also learn about the limitations of AI streaming tools, so you can decide when to use them. With this information, you’ll be able to leverage advanced AI capabilities to their full effect — and avoid common pitfalls.

What are the benefits of using AI in streaming?

AI’s strength is detecting complex patterns and creating an output based on that data. This can be applied to a wide range of contexts, including generating metadata and refining recommendation engines. The next section will explore the specific uses of AI in more detail, but here are a few quick AI streaming benefits:

  • Efficiency: AI tools significantly reduce the time it takes to create and manage content. For example, Vimeo’s AI-powered productivity features automate time-consuming tasks like writing and translating subtitles, adding video details, and generating summaries.
  • Enhanced user experience: AI systems are uniquely adept at creating data-driven recommendations for your audience. This is the reason Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are so popular, and how their recommendations are so accurate!
  • Enhanced security: AI-enhanced security tools can detect suspicious traffic and alert your cybersecurity team to potential threats.

Top uses of AI in streaming services

Video streaming services leverage AI to augment their products and benefit their users. Read on for some of the top uses streaming platforms have found for artificial intelligence.

Copyright protection

Did you know you can train AI models on specific videos, then ask them to look for exact (or near) matches? Since AI can “watch” several videos simultaneously at super-fast speeds, it’s much more efficient at looking for copyright infringement than a team of humans. One dedicated AI system and a few people to monitor its results are all you need, enabling you to reinvest your workforce toward more meaningful projects, like quality assurance and content editing.

Discover more about digital rights management

Video indexing and metadata enrichment

Writing metadata and managing video libraries are time-consuming tasks to manually complete, but an AI tool can handle both in a fraction of the time it takes a human. For instance, Vimeo’s AI can help generate the video metadata for use in search engine optimization and also generate tags, giving users helpful category organization tips for their video library content.

Learn more about video SEO

Localization

Translating videos used to require a huge investment in localization services that could take weeks to manually translate and dub videos. Now, Vimeo’s AI translation tool can do this in minutes. Viewers simply select which language they want to hear from the video player’s settings menu.

Explore AI video translation

Content creation assistance

One of the first uses of generative AI was in generating scripts and other written content, which continues today with Vimeo’s one-take video creation tool. With just a prompt and a couple of options for tone and duration, Vimeo’s artificial intelligence can create a high-quality video script in mere seconds. After recording your video, you can remove “ums” and other vocal fillers from the transcript by simply highlighting and deleting words you don’t want to cut them out of the video.

Create a video in one take

Targeted advertising

AI-enhanced algorithms can analyze even the most nuanced patterns in viewer behavior. They can then use that data to select the best product recommendations and advertisements for each user, effectively turning ad monetization into a reliable source of revenue. If you’re building a streaming service with Vimeo Streaming, these features can make all the difference in getting you up and running.

Try Vimeo Streaming

Video quality

With the success and stability of well-established streaming services like Vimeo, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix, viewers have come to expect impeccable video quality without buffering. An AI-enhanced streaming platform can optimize your bitrate in real time to ensure smooth loading for any internet speed. 

Upload a video to get started

What are the limitations of AI in video streaming?

While AI can significantly enhance your video content and improve efficiency, there are limitations. Here are a few factors you should consider before deciding to leverage artificial intelligence for streaming or video on demand:

  • Sensitive content: Machine learning generates content that’s similar to what it’s trained on, which doesn’t tend to include sensitive material. If you need to make a video script that covers sensitive topics, it’s best to do that independently to ensure you navigate complex subjects with care.
  • Risk of copyright infringement: You must be careful about what you train a real-time generative AI system on to avoid infringing on the rights of artists and writers. Always use royalty-free content or ask artists for permission before training your AI tool on their work.
  • Input dependence: The output quality you receive from an AI-powered app directly depends on the input quality you provide. AI doesn’t handle ambiguity very well, so it’s best to provide explicit, highly detailed prompts.
  • Balancing innovation with responsibility: While AI-generated content gets better every day, it’s still no replacement for human creativity. So use AI to enhance your teams’ talent, not to replace it.

The future of AI in video streaming: Shaping immersive and personalized content

What used to be a simple recommendation engine is now a whole suite of AI apps that can optimize bitrates to reduce buffering, select the right advertisements to engage viewers, and analyze video metrics to surface actionable insights. With real-time AI systems, machine learning can now deliver dynamic, personalized content that reacts to user choices and establishes a stronger connection between viewers and what they’re watching. 

As we discover new ways to leverage this technology, AI is rapidly expanding in scope and detail. On the business side, AI-powered platforms like Vimeo Central boost employee engagement, collaboration, and productivity by taking over time-consuming tasks that used to slow them down. 

FAQ

What tasks can AI automate in live streaming event production?

AI applications can improve the efficiency of a live stream event by automating time-consuming tasks like teleprompter text generation or closed captioning. Additionally, Vimeo’s live streaming platform leverages AI to optimize bitrate and resolution, ensuring a smooth stream for virtual events of all kinds.

Check out our live stream event guide

What types of AI algorithms are commonly used in video streaming?

While the details of their AI algorithms are proprietary, streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix use AI that processes real-time data to predict what viewers want to watch next. They can also adapt the same principles to select targeted advertisements that are more likely to engage users.

What technical skills are needed to implement AI in video streaming?

Very little. Most AI-powered tools use natural language processing, which enables you to interact with them in words, not code. For example, you can give Vimeo’s text-based editor a simple prompt like “eliminate all the ‘ums’ and any pauses over 0.5 seconds.” It parses the syntax of your statement to turn it into a command it can follow.

Enhance your streaming strategy with AI-powered features from Vimeo

Integrating AI into your video creation is no longer an untested strategy. As AI technologies have found their way into every step of the creative process, they’ve become a core requirement for businesses to stay competitive. That’s why Vimeo’s video platform uses AI technology in everything from enhancing stream quality to analyzing analytics. 

We’ve curated these tools to ensure they’re responsibly implemented and optimized for improving user experiences without hindering the human creativity that your viewers want to see. When you’re ready to unlock more from your video platform, check out Vimeo Streaming and contact the Sales team for an in-depth demo.

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