British TV was very late to the Artificial Intelligence revolution.
* #Broadcasters fell behind the cutting edge of recommendation algorithms and allowed global players to take the market in #streaming. This delay was exacerbated by an early competition intervention which took too UK-focussed a view of the emerging global streaming market and prevented them from pooling their content.
* The UK still does not have an #LargeLanguageModel of its own, and risks replicating in #AI content creation the work-for-hire model of its film industry - think #StarWars or #Marvel - where production is executed onshore, but the capital ownership and equity upside are in California. Most of the best UK #AI talents actually work for US companies.
* British AI policy makers have been too focussed on regulation and compliance so far, and not enough on industrial strategy in our world-beating industries, like #Media.
But Britain has cranked into gear in other ways:
* Production companies are developing AI-driven #creative ideas at scale, and some now have dedicated AI development units. This is new in 2024, and there will probably be an AI TV entertainment format in 2025.
* Producers are looking at many AI applications to reboot the creative dynamics of a world-beating formats industry:
* Data layers in reality TV (what are the cast feeling ?)
* 30%+ post production efficiencies through machine learning applications (look at the work of @EditCloud
* AI in sports coverage
* AI music co-creation
* Perhaps most interesting of all, agentic applications in dynamic story creation.
Despite all the UK heritage and expertise in #ArtificialIntelligence and #TV, in this emerging field, we comprehensively lost round one to the US.
But we are still in the game. And what Britain experiences, so Europe will also.
My piece summing it all up is out today in the European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy. Link to the article in first comment. Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
