In today’s workforce, businesses need to remain agile to support increasingly global teams. In order to stay on the pulse of shifting workplace trends, these large companies are turning to new media and technologies. At IBM, we’re ushering in the future of effective and efficient workplace collaboration with our advanced video and AI technology.
That’s why today IBM Watson Media unveiled new AI-powered Automated Watson Caption Support and Speech-to-Text capabilities to its enterprise video offering. From town halls to training and development seminars, we’re applying Watson’s machine learning capabilities to expedite the distribution of enhanced video content to teams worldwide. These flexible, scalable video streaming capabilities connect enterprises worldwide through live and on-demand streaming video technology — increasing accessibility, streamlining compliance adherence, expediting workflows, and enhancing overall corporate communications.
Rodan + Fields, the number one skincare brand in the U.S. (according to Euromonitor) and one of the fastest-growing disruptors in beauty, is among the first of our clients to experience these enhancements to their global enterprise communications. The company has a range of popular, dermatologist-inspired, clinic-quality products and in 2016, they achieved a major milestone by surpassing $1 billion in revenue. By pioneering a high-tech, high-touch business model that combines the best of retail, ecommerce, and social platforms, Rodan + Fields has more than a million customers and an expansive network of over 200,000 Independent Consultants. Rodan + Fields uses IBM Watson Media’s enterprise streaming solutions to connect with their Consultants, and with our latest features, companies like Rodan + Fields can deliver the best video experience to their employees and Consultants regardless of location.
Automatic transcript generation and real-time processing slashes editing workflows and costs
Enterprises have huge libraries of video content available to their employees. Costly captioning fees can force companies to restrict captioning to a small portion of that content. Automated Watson Caption Support immediately recognizes speech within uploaded videos, converts words and phrases into text for video captions, and provides an easy-to-use interface for revising captioning errors. This process reduces analysis and editing work that once took several hours to minutes. Now businesses can cut costs, share video content more quickly, and reallocate internal content production staff to work on projects that involve more strategic planning and fewer administrative tasks. As Watson processes data, it learns and understands more niche and contextual terminology, improving the accuracy of its instant captioning as well as retroactively sourcing and correcting any prior errors.
Optimizing employee engagement through advanced search and discovery features
Using Speech-to-Text, these automatically-generated transcripts, which are accessible for manual editing, lay the groundwork for a new feature where viewers can search specific keywords and skip ahead to any section within a video where that text is mentioned within the caption. Specifically, Watson will search through the generated transcript, which logs spoken content with its corresponding timestamp, creating logical chapters to help individual employees find the right content and navigate to points in time within a video.
Rodan + Fields is disrupting the beauty industry with their innovative, transformative products that deliver, real, visible results. Integral to this success is providing product awareness to their network of over 200,000 Independent Consultants. Rodan + Fields is leveraging the power of live streaming video as they scale the brand globally. With Independent Consultants currently spanning across three countries and further global expansion in the brand’s future, IBM Watson’s technology enables Rodan + Fields to connect with their growing audience in real-time.
“For the first time, more than 60,000 of our Consultants were able to tune in, engage and fully immerse themselves in the 2017 Rodan + Fields Convention virtually through live streaming video,” said Heidi Wissmiller, Chief Field Operating Officer of Rodan + Fields. “The participation and engagement levels exceeded our expectations sparking more than 1.3 million conversations and reaching over 80M people via social channels across 45 countries. Using the power of IBM’s Watson technology we were able to add captions to our posted videos, making the experience more intuitive, engaging and accessible to our Consultants so they could learn and connect with others anywhere in the world at any time.”
Increased accessibility and compliance makes content more digestible for all team members
Enabling automatic captions for streaming video ensures that no one is excluded from important content due to hearing impairments. Many industries are required by law to provide captions on video content as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Compliance to these regulations can be costly and time-consuming; however, automating captioning allows for a more cost-effective and efficient solution. Overall, businesses can maximize employee engagement with an advanced captioning strategy.
Integrated with Watson APIs, IBM’s video streaming and enterprise video streaming offerings provide seamless automatic captioning for video content, as well as improved discoverability for on-demand video transcripts. IBM and Rodan + Fields will examine how “going live” helped Rodan + Fields energize its Independent Consultants and strengthen its brand at the IBM Think 2018 conference next month. You can find more information on the session here.
For users of IBM’s video streaming and enterprise video streaming offerings, you can find more information on the new features here. IBM also offers a standalone Watson Captioning service outside of the end-to-end solutions.