Meghna Krishna - Chief Revenue Officer, Toch.ai

Gone are the days when you would regret missing an interesting scene in a movie/tv shows or a thrilling moment during a cricket match. But now, you have a chance to re-live and treasure those scenes or moments or go in flashback at the touch of your mobile screen. Mumbai-based Toch.ai, a video-tech platform, uses AI to slice or splice video content to generate short clips of highlights of sports events or key moments of TV series that have a great demand among viewers and therefore helps online video creators, media companies, advertisers and OTT platforms optimise their videos and meta-tags by using AI and deep learning. It is of great help to broadcasters who monetise live events, provide auto subtitles for live events in different languages based on the viewer’s location, and enable automatic meta-tagging. Ramesh Kumar Raja caught up with Meghna Krishna, Chief Revenue Officer, Toch.ai, to understand more about this platform and its role in unlocking the potential of video content. Excerpts:

What exactly is Toch.ai and what is its business model? Toch.ai is a Saas company with a cloud-agnostic AI solution at its core. Our solution works towards unlocking the potential of videos by making them more engaging, reducing the time and cost of production, and making them more monetisable.

What are the technicalities involved in making videos for today’s smartphone generation who is always looking for a unique content? Today’s consumers are spoilt for choices and there is a constant battle between content providers for a share of their mind. Smartphones, and more importantly, internet penetration have made this situation even more complex as audiences are consuming content asynchronously across platforms rather than in the traditional way of scheduled broadcasting. In such a scenario, it is imperative that content creators and broadcasters provide target (tremendously personalised) content on the right channels to drive offtake and engagement. The success of content providers to achieve this, in our experience, is closely related to the ability to produce multiple bite-sized content pieces and at the same time target the social media platforms that are frequented by the audiences. Short-form content is truly the king, and broadcasters and content creators need to embrace this, as they navigate the new hyperpersonalised digital environment of today’s smartphone generation.

How do you see the ever-increasing consumption of video content these days? How has the video industry grown over the years? We see two clear changes in the video

industry and those changes will dominate the consumption patterns of the large audience pool:

• Video streaming: The global video

streaming market size is expected to reach USD 223.98 billion by 2028,

according to a new report by Grand View

Research, Inc. The market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 21.0% from 2021 to 2028. This explosion of video streaming will see a mass migration of audiences from traditional consumption channels to the new-age streaming platforms

• Short-form videos: Microblogging

platforms have mushroomed throughout the last couple of years and their popularity is only increasing. With the democratisation of video production and the shorter attention spans, we will see short-form content really drive the growth phase of video consumption

These two changes will be an opportunity for content creators and broadcasters, and newage technologies will need to be applied to service the unique request of the audiences and capture market share.

What are the latest technologies which are playing a critical role in the transformation and growth of the Indian video industry?

and ML continue to describe how content

is delivered in the video industry, one piece that has had a transformational effect is the use of self-learning algorithm. We today are

at a stage where our AI and ML models have

started to truly utilise the power of large data sets and train themselves to deliver results. These self-learning algorithms can identify more metadata and unique cases increasing their coverage and understanding of the video’s assets. As the coverage and understanding increases, so does their utility, scalability, and applicability. Imagine a state where all video content however unique is categorisable to meet the unique demands of the end consumer, this is what self-learning AI is making possible at a breath-taking speed.

What are the revolutionary changes that have been witnessed in the video marketing space where smartphones have a key role to play? Short answer, micro-moments and personalised targeting. The length of videos is going down and the needs of the audience and wants from content pieces are becoming highly personalised. In this time of change, content creators and broadcasters need to evolve to be relevant. It is interesting to know that 57% (or as much as 75% according to other sources) of global video is played using mobile devices. Users worldwide are 1.5 times likely to watch a brands video ad using their smartphones and 92% of videos watched via mobiles are shared with other users.

What are the kinds of clients you service? We service majorly B2B clients and most of our customers come from the entertainment and broadcasting industry. We work closely with some of the world’s largest broadcasters and the OTT platforms, which are the largest producers of content across the globe. We also work closely with industry bodies by understanding their needs for future video production.

How is Toch.ai leveraging technology to customize video content to match the evolving needs of the customers/audience? Video is on a trajectory of low attention span, high competition, and customised needs of the audience. This means that while more content is being created but this content is services niches and the ability to engage other audience sets is becoming quite challenging. Our technology by its ability to build content assets, as per the requirements of our partner, helps them multiply their asset pool which can be used to target the right audience sets and build higher engagements. As the AI engine delivers results based on specific requirements, it has the ability to help content creators and broadcasters service their audiences better.

Through our tools and capturing of metadata on videos, we are able to better categorise the videos and the moments within. Providing the right information and assets to content creators and platforms, we enable them to reach their audiences with the right content on the right platform.

In addition to helping our partners in creation of bite-sized content, we also help them with the post production of content by providing them tools to add graphical elements within the video and solve their problem of distribution by helping publish content across platforms.

“It is interesting to know that 57% (or as much as 75% according to other sources) of global video is played using mobile devices. Users worldwide are 1.5 times likely to watch a brands video ad using their smartphones and 92% of videos watched via mobiles are shared with other users”

What according to you is the future of video consumption? Across the world, videos are becoming a tool of communication and the process of creation of these videos and their distribution is democratising. We are sitting on a great wave of video content and this will only fuel more consumption. The industry players need to transform to make the most of this opportunity.

The Global Video AI Market is growing at a fast pace and is expected to be a 169.4 bn USD industry by 2025. As a foremost player in this industry, Toch.ai is placed uniquely as a first mover to capture the many aspects of this industry through its ever evolving and learning AI platform.

ramesh@mymobile.co.in

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Here’s an interesting fact: In the last two years, Airtel has scaled up headcount across its digital verticals by 150%. This massive talent ramp up is rooted in Airtel’s strategy of in-sourcing a large part of its digital processes in order to build products with much sharper customer focus. Over half of Airtel’s India business today flows through its digital channels as customers and partners look for frictionless and intuitive experiences on the go.

Today, Airtel is amongst the largest digital innovation factories in India with over 1,600 people working on cutting edge platforms and technologies. That’s already over 10% of its India workforce and the company continues to hire digital talent at a breakneck speed.

During the recent investor call, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, Bharti Airtel, said that some of the talents Airtel has been able to acquire has come from around the world from the best companies including large technology and internet companies.

Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, joined Airtel after having spent close to two decades in the US with top tech companies. Pradipt Kapoor, Chief Information Officer, has come from Merck UK. Talents from Silicon Valley or from India’s leading startups and of course premier engineering colleges and B-schools are coming to be a part of Airtel’s digital innovation.

So, why should top talents choose Airtel over a technology company or startup? The answer lies in two things. The Unique Opportunity and the Culture of Empowerment at Airtel.

Let’s talk about the Unique Opportunity first. Telcos are the core of all things and that makes them a hub for some of the most exciting digital innovation. And Airtel has been pioneering digital transformation to serve over 340 mn plus customers in a digitally connected India. That’s on a scale that’s equal to the population of USA.

Wynk Music, India’s #1 music streaming app, and other apps like Airtel Thanks and Airtel Xstream have all been fully built inhouse by Airtel. There are over 200 mn MAUS across these apps. This is amongst the highest in India.

Teams of engineers and data scientists (including EX-NASA talent) at Airtel X Labs have built AI enabled chat bots that will talk to customers in over 12 Indian languages and solve their service requests. When a customer walks into any Airtel store, the retailer uses his Airtel Mitra app to click a pic of the customer, his ID proof and the entire onboarding happens digitally (zero paper) in a matter of a few minutes. Or take the case of Airtel IQ, which Airtel’s digital and network teams built together, to help businesses connect with customers securely. So, every time you order food from Swiggy or hail a cab, Airtel IQ enables businesses communicate with customers in a privacy safe fashion. Just a few of the exciting digital innovations at Airtel.

That’s the kind of India-first digital platforms people get to build when they come at Airtel. Work on cutting-edge technology and build for global scale and not just a few million. This is an opportunity that perhaps only Airtel has to offer.

And then comes the Airtel Culture. Despite being a very large organization, Airtel has the heart of a startup. From its open-offices to providing full empowerment to its people, Airtel let’s people grow fast and invests in their development.

At Airtel, big tasks are given to young talent with huge empowerment. People are encouraged to be entrepreneurial in nature, solve challenging problems by attacking them with data-driven insights and fresh perspectives. And an agile culture of development and a meritocracy based on metrics and market impact rewards people and teams for the impact they create on the experience of Airtel’s 320 mn customers, which are at the core of the company’s strategy.

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