Industry Thought Leadership

Generative AI helps the Communications, Media & Entertainment (CME) industry overcome complex challenges, drive growth, and achieve better outcomes</p>

Until recently, we believed that arts, creativity, and the generation of artifacts were solely within the terrain of human beings, while Artificial Intelligence (AI) remained outside this territory. However, in a short span of time, AI has entered this exclusive club of humans, causing excitement, surprise, and fear altogether. So far, AI has been able to predict, detect, converse, recommend, and observe, but now it can also generate across six elements: code, data, documents/text, audio, video, and images.

In a way, ChatGPT has done for AI what COVID did for digital adoption. Technology companies had long been attempting to teach and influence their clients, but it wasn't until COVID came along that digital adoption took off. ChatGPT has provided a simple and intuitive interface to play with technology, and everyone can see the value in it quickly. Thus, enterprises are now more aspirational with regards to AI technologies, and chatbots, which were widely implemented earlier but less adopted by end-users, are likely to experience a revival in the enterprise.

AI is playing big in the Middle East region
It is predicted that AI will be worth $320bn in the Middle East by 2030, and in the UAE, AI is expected to make up 13.6 percent of GDP, followed by Saudi Arabia with 12.5 percent, according to an industry report. To intensify research and efforts towards promoting the adoption of futuristic technologies in government work models, the UAE government has recently launched a comprehensive guide on the utilization of generative AI applications. For a region normally dependent on oil revenues, these predictions and initiatives are a clear sign that technology could play a significant role in diversifying its economy. However, the region still faces challenges such as a lack of access to data and a shortage of skilled professionals in the field.

Tech Mahindra already has a significant footprint, withlabs in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman. These labs serve as innovation centers, providing technology solutions to clients in the region and helping companies accelerate their digital transformation journeys. The labs offer a range of services, including digital strategy, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. Last year, we inaugurated an Innovation and Technology Development Center, in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, too. All these will cater to the telecom, media & entertainment, oil and gas, BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance), energy & utilities and public sectors by leveraging AI, data & analytics, cloud, and 5G technologies. This is in line with Tech Mahindra’s commitment to invest in upskilling and reskilling local talent to take on projects in the Middle East and around the world.

Generative AI for telecom industry
In the telecom industry, providing effective customer service has always been a challenge due to the large customer base. Traditional call centers led by humans were neither efficient nor cost-effective. Self-care and self-diagnosing options created more frustration for end-users, as there was often a lack of smooth context transfer to agents (human or digital). With generative AI, there are possibilities to respond fast and do context-aware dialogues using bots. This potentially plugs the gap in existing chatbot technology, which typically lacks context-aware conversational responses.

By using generative AI, telecom providers can create bots or virtual assistants that offer customers 24/7 support, prompt responses to queries, and personalized experiences. This enhances customer satisfaction while reducing costs for the telecom provider. Virtual assistants can assist customers with inquiries, billing, and account management, while analyzing data on usage patterns, device type, and location to generate personalized recommendations based on customer behavior. This frees up human customer service representatives to focus on more complex issues and provide personalized support.

In network rollout and troubleshooting area, generative AI can help generate test cases and test data, which, with the help of automation technology, can execute the QA process of the network in autonomous mode, thus reducing rollout or upgrade cost and time. Similarly, code generation capability of generative AI can help resolve networking issues faster, which makes it deskilled work to some extent.

Besides, telecom providers must maintain a vast network of equipment, from cell towers to fiber-optic cables. Keeping track of maintenance timelines for all this equipment can be challenging. Generative AI helps by analyzing data from sensors and other sources, enabling providers to predict when maintenance is required before equipment fails. This reduces downtime, improves network reliability, and ultimately leads to better customer satisfaction.
In addition, generative AI can improve fraud detection and prevention by analyzing patterns and flagging suspicious behavior. Inventory allocation can also be optimized by predicting demand and adjusting stock levels accordingly using generative AI.

Impact of Generative AI in Media and Entertainment Industry
The media and entertainment industry is the most impacted by generative AI, which can handle tasks such as content creation, editing, merging, and style transfer. The television and filmmaking industry has also experienced this new wave of technology, allowing filmmakers to create ideas, plot lines, visuals, characters, and scenes without having to spend countless hours and resources. This opens new possibilities for storytelling and enables filmmakers to explore new genres and styles while focusing on more important aspects of the film.

Likewise, generative AI is bridging cultural gaps and bringing the world closer together by making local media content more accessible to a global audience, resulting in a wider viewership. Subtitles and dubs are crucial in breaking language barriers, and with the help of generative AI, subtitles can be created in multiple languages, ensuring that the message of the tv program or a film is exactly conveyed to viewers who may not understand the original language. AI-based dubbing technology can also create voice overs in different languages, making any media program or film accessible to audiences who prefer to hear the dialogue in their native language.

Ethical and responsible use of generative AI
While a myriad of cool new things are popping up in various industries with the versatility of generative AI, some of these possibilities also pose some of the biggest challenges that mankind will face in the coming years, which is extremely dangerous.

Responsible AI, which has so far been the subject of panel discussions and CXO tasks, needs to play a more significant role at the ground level. While explainability, fairness, and bias were the primary axes of responsible AI, accountability, ethics, and fake detection will need prominent focus for generative AI. Negative use of generative AI can lead to criminal and fraudulent activities and can potentially cause social unrest.

Key considerations while adopting generative AI
On the journey of generative AI adoption, enterprises need to deal with quite a few complex topics with regards to generative AI like -
- Cyber security
- Data Protection
- Accountability
- Legal IP and Copyright issues
- Model transparency and ability to control output
- Cost model – While per unit price is in few cents, but when content ingestion happens at a broad way and multiple users start using it at scale, there can potentially be a surprise element.

Conclusion
With its tremendous capabilities, generative AI has the potential to transform the CME industry by creating new opportunities for content creation and delivery. In the telecom industry, generative models can be used to optimize network performance, predict demand and customer behavior, and automate customer service processes that can help improve network efficiency and customer satisfaction while reducing costs. In the media and entertainment industry, generative AI can be used to generate personalized content recommendations and enhance the creative process by generating new and innovative ideas or content. This can help boost the engagement and loyalty of the audience while reducing production costs. By leveraging generative AI, industry players can gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace while improving the customer experience.

To conclude, those players that adopt generative AI to power their digital touchpoints will be better positioned to succeed in a fast-changing market.