A renewed surge of innovation is set to transform how consumers access content across key media sectors while scaling automation to drive business growth.
Recommendation engines in the Telecommunications, Media, Entertainment and Gaming (TMEG) space currently generate ‘if you like that, you’ll like this’ content suggestions to retain users looking for something to watch, listen to or play.
However, this approach is being superseded by conversational cross-platform recommendation engines powered by Generative AI, says Dave Liu, EPAM’s Head of Media & Entertainment Consulting, North America.
Liu says: “Generative AI can ingest consumer data across multiple channels and then make hyper-personalized viewing, listening or reading recommendations in response to specific customer requests. It also allows a deeper analysis of an individual’s behavior patterns to provide even more personalized results.”
For example, a consumer could request a specific film or television show that may be on a completely different streaming platform, and yet still get relevant recommendations for content, or even refine their content recommendations based on other attributes like actors, genre, ratings, and more.
Liu explains that Generative AI-powered recommendation engines, hosted on ultra-agile and scalable cloud platforms such as AWS, could be embedded in smart TVs and set-top streaming boxes.
“Consumers have so many content choices now, but they just want to access the content they like, effortlessly, regardless of the streaming service,” he says.
Generative AI avatars
Next-gen AI-powered chatbots are also poised to elevate customer experience in the telecoms sector.
This is appealing to CIOs tasked to achieve productivity gains. Foundry’s 2023 AI Priorities Study found 48% of IT decision-makers cite productivity as a business objective driving AI innovations – the number one ranked answer.1
Forward-looking companies are exploring the merits of in-store kiosks, featuring virtualized sales assistants with in-depth knowledge of the company’s products and services as well as individual customers’ account details.
Forget the clunky chatbots of yesterday, these Generative AI-powered avatars interact with customers using plain speech, trouble-shooting device and service plan queries in a human-like manner.
Liu explains that EPAM has developed a virtual customer assistant called Vivien, which is hosted on AWS and can link to companies’ back-end systems to automatically answer customer queries.
When the solution is unable to resolve a customer query it can be escalated to a human operator in a “Wizard of Oz” mode where they can interface through the virtual assistant to maintain a more engaging appearance and even dialect of the customer.
Ensuring cost-effective AI adoption
Recent AI advances made possible by cutting-edge cloud technology will significantly boost productivity and customer experience within the TMEGs industries. To maximize value, however, CIOs must carefully manage adoption. They can do this by:
- Identifying the best AI for their use case. Generative AI grabs headlines, but it can be expensive. Predictive AI, however, generally requires less budget, but can effectively analyze TMEG marketing-campaign performance and recommend actions.
- Doubling down on cloud and data. CIOs must understand data provenance, ensure it is clean, models are sufficiently trained, and robust governance is in place. Choosing the right cloud partner is also critical.
- Empowering rather than replacing humans. AI can automate low-risk tasks so employees can concentrate on creativity and innovation.
- Carefully managing AI work streams. CIOs should monitor project overlaps and guard against replication. EPAM’s DIAL accelerator, hosted on AWS, generates a single view of multiple AI projects while managing access and protecting proprietary information.
- Automating routine tasks. This can unleash the biggest productivity gains. numerous AI use cases exist in TMEGS supply chains, content localization and accounting.
- Partnering with major LLM and cloud service providers. Solution customization can dramatically reduce costs and accelerate go-to-market times.
Discover how EPAM and its cloud partner AWS can help you boost productivity and customer experience in the telecoms, media, entertainment and gaming industries.
1Foundry, AI Priorities Study 2023, October 2023 https://foundryco.com/tools-for-marketers/research-ai-priorities/