NAB Show: Wasabi AiR AI-Enabled Intelligent Media Storage for Sports, M&E Industries

Wasabi Technologies, Inc. introduced AiR, an industry’s first AI-enabled intelligent media storage.

The product combines the company’s performance, low-cost object storage with advanced AI metadata auto-tagging and multilingual searchable speech-to-text transcription. Video files uploaded to AiR are immediately analyzed and a second-by-second metadata index is created, enabling users to find what they are looking for. AiR greatly reduces the cost of metadata creation: with it, customers pay only for the storage.  There is no additional charge for use of the AI.  

In January, the company announced its acquisition of Curio AI, an AI platform designed specifically to analyze and index large video archives. Now users simply upload their video files to AiR storage and the AI automatically goes to work generating a rich second-by-second metadata index. It uses facial recognition, searchable speech-to-text, multi-lingual translation, speaker recognition, optical text recognition, logo identification, and sounds recognition with unparalleled accuracy. Video archives currently stored on tape can be uploaded to AiR storage and formerly ‘dead’ content can become a new source of revenue and user engagement. 

It is purpose-built for use cases including:   

• Post-production: Quickly find and assemble video for news packages, highlight reels, social media content and more in real time to enable production teams to focus on creativity without being bogged down searching for content 

• Sponsorship and marketing ROI: Find logos for sponsorship attribution with ease for ROI analysis 

• Geo-diversity: Tailor content to specifically meet the requirements of geo-diverse audiences  

“AiR introduces a solution to a persistent 25-year-old challenge, combining AI-driven search capabilities with high-performance cloud storage,” said Dave McCarthy, research VP, IDC. “This marks a transformative shift in media management, offering efficiency and accessibility for businesses dealing with massive unstructured data. AiR represents a significant advancement in tackling the longstanding issue of managing extensive data archives, within a substantial market for intelligent media storage solutions.” 

“Why move to the cloud if you still can’t find anything?” said David Friend, co-founder and CEO, Wasabi. “Object storage without metadata is like a library without a catalog. AiR works right out of the box and it’s as simple to use as popular search engines.  For example, if it finds a face that it doesn’t recognize, it asks ‘Who is this?’ Using a simple UI, the user can train their own models.  You can have tens of thousands of hours of video, and AiR will take you right to the moment you are looking for. And you can search as much as you want – we only charge for the storage.” 

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Transformative price predictability and performance accuracy  
Media organizations are operating under tighter deadlines and narrower profit margins and are looking for ways to speed production workflows while controlling costs. AiR’s inexpensive, capacity-based pricing allows users the freedom to work with their content without being penalized with unpredictable fees for AI analysis, egress, or API requests, at a price up to 80% less than competitors. Both source files and metadata are owned exclusively by each customer – the company never uses our customer’s proprietary data to train models that others can use. Files and metadata are secure and protected from ransomware, disasters or accidental deletions by the firm’s immutable storage and multi-user authentication.   

“Wasabi AiR significantly reduces our manual efforts due to its seamless use of AI recognition technology to identify, organize and categorize files,” said Drew Crisp, SVP, digital, Liverpool Football Club. “At the club we handle extensive media content, and so this enhanced efficiency could really help us to locate specific content quickly and accurately within our archive, and create new content streams quickly, empowering our creativity and innovation. AiR transcends mere storage; it will become another key to unlocking the full potential of our content.” 

AiR is available this quarter. This offer will showcase at NAB April 14-17, Las Vegas, NV.

Resources:
See savings Wasabi AiR enables with the cost calculator based on hours of video, bit rates and monthly amount of downloaded content.
Watch demo (registration required)
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