The global entertainment and media market is large and continues to grow, and the surge in demand for non-English content has brought new opportunities and challenges to content providers. IMAX is keenly aware of this trend and is actively seeking technological solutions to enhance the international dissemination capabilities of its original content to better serve global audiences. This article will delve into how IMAX uses artificial intelligence technology, especially its cooperation with Camb.ai, to localize its original content, and analyze the significance of this move to IMAX's future development strategy.
As global content consumption continues to grow, demand for non-English content is rising rapidly, even surpassing English-language movies and shows. Against this background, IMAX began to use artificial intelligence technology to promote the localization process of its original content to attract more viewers.
According to a PwC report, the global entertainment and media industry has reached US$2.8 trillion in 2023 and is expected to grow to US$3.4 trillion at an average annual growth rate of nearly 4% in the next five years. In particular, the popularity of non-English language content is also rising rapidly in English-speaking markets including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Take Netflix as an example. The platform's audience for non-English content in the UK has grown by 90% in the past three years.
In order to better adapt to this trend, IMAX announced on Monday that it has reached a cooperation with Camb.ai, a startup based in Dubai, to use its artificial intelligence voice model to translate IMAX's original content, including documentaries. Camb.ai has successfully applied its AI dubbing and speech translation technology in multiple sports events, including the Australian Open, Eurovision Song Contest, and the American Professional Football League.
Camb.ai's technology adopts a "three-level" architecture, in which the base layer is its Boli and Mars models, the infrastructure layer hosts these AI models, and ultimately provides services through the DubStudio platform. Unlike other AI models, Boli is able to retain the nuances in speech. After generating translated text, the Mars model converts the text into speech in the target language while retaining background sound effects.
According to Akshat Prakash, co-founder and chief technology officer of Camb.ai, the technology enables real-time translation in up to 10 languages with a latency of 20 to 30 seconds, making it suitable for live streaming and broadcasting . IMAX plans to roll out AI translation in phases, prioritizing high-resource languages. The application of this technology is expected to help IMAX save translation costs, but specific details have not yet been disclosed.
Currently, Camb.ai has 50 employees and completed a $4 million round of seed financing in February this year. It is preparing for larger financing to further expand its team and market influence.
Highlight:
Demand for non-English content has soared, and IMAX uses AI technology to promote the localization process.
IMAX partners with Camb.ai to use AI translation to enhance the audience experience.
Camb.ai has received funding and plans to expand its team and technology applications.
The cooperation between IMAX and Camb.ai marks the successful application of artificial intelligence technology in the field of film and television content localization. This move not only helps IMAX expand the global market and enhance the international competitiveness of its content, but also reflects IMAX's emphasis on technological innovation and user experience. In the future, with the continuous development of AI technology, we can expect more similar innovative applications to bring a richer and more diverse audio-visual feast to global audiences.