Communicate sat down for an exclusive interview with Siddharth Puri, CEO of Tyroo, to talk aboutVidtech.ai, the new AI-based tech solution that converts data into video content.
How did the idea for Vidtech.ai come about?
Back in 2016, we were creating this e-commerce company with a 24-hour video experience. And we thought that if we wanted to succeed, we needed to figure out a way to avoid paying a lot of people to keep shooting videos to make this 24-hour content. Vidtech.ai was born as a way to bring down the cost of content production through the application of computer vision and technology.
So, what does Vidtech.ai do?
Vidtech.ai principally solves the problem around how can we utilize content available in different formats and convert it into video. The technology is able to take the content, for example a 1,000-word article, summarize the content, understand the emotion that the author is trying to portray, look at the objects, images, and videos available in the article, sequence them, understand them visually, etc.
Currently, the ethos of Vidtech.ai is to solve two challenges that brands face today. The first challenge is that brands have so much old content at their disposal – whether it is images, articles, etc. – and struggle to make it reusable, especially converting those very same assets into a new popular medium like video. Vidtech.ai comes in and takes all these assets and turns them into fresh video content.
The second challenge from a brand standpoint is identifying, from the plethora of content available, which content to select, objects to select, what context to put it in, so that you can get a performing video that people will click on and engage with. Vidtech.ai solves the issue with its technology and is able to create about 1,000 different, unique variations of that same content to avoid the creative fatigue for the consumer.
What kind of videos does the technology produce?
We create videos for digital. These videos are tailored for mobile; hence, the focus is on driving actions. We create videos where all elements are focused on audience affinity to drive performance. We create text-based videos. As a software, we have built a very huge library of pre-built animations. Based on the kind of content that is available, we’re able to identify the kind of goal the article wants to achieve, based on which we can add the right template, color, animation, etc., so that the final product looks like a meaningful edited video. These videos are not limited to social media platforms. [Brands] can even use them on their own applications and YouTube [channels].
Does the technology support video formats for both digital and television?
No, our technology supports [only] digital formats, whether vertical, square, etc. We’re not focused on television for now because television has other challenges from a linear ad standpoint and video production standpoint.
Why expand to the Middle East?
If you look at the whole of India, Middle East and Southeast Asia as a market, you’d be fairly surprised that the Middle East is much closer to Europe compared to Asia in terms of software purchases. This is a market where customers are more appreciative of software companies. Another reason is that companies out here are more appreciative of efficiency and how AI and data sciences can bring in more efficiency. The market is also fairly mature here.
How could artificial intelligence and data sciences contribute to your work?
AI has two important pillars. The first is that, as humans, on a generation basis we’ve always evolved over time and machines can help us accelerate that evolution. Basically, machines can do the low-level work, so that we can do the job that we’re meant to do.
The second pillar is that we’re able to build a memory so that repetitive tasks or knowledge can be expanded. For example, when you do a certain job X number of times, your brain creates a cognitive playbook based on the numerous experiences you had. And then, we become reliant on that memory. When it comes to memory, some people are fairly sharp; some people multitask and ultimately tend to misstep from time to time. AI, with its ability to hold a lot more data, can make that data crunched and accessible in nano-seconds and make it expandable for you so that you’re able to do your job more efficiently.
