today, uh, we are joined by Anil Jain, uh, a transformational leader. And a tech executive at Google Cloud, he drives innovation in ai, ml, and cloud technologies across consumer industries like, uh, media, telecom, gaming, retail, um, uh, several other consumer industries, right? So he, with our 25 years of experience, annual has shaped, uh, you know, video landscape through leadership roles at BrightCove and Unicorn Media.
Which he helped, uh, sell successfully. Um, he also is the founder of Brighton Innovation and an advisor to numerous startups. So I worked with Anil from the time he was at Brightcove. Uh, we have, uh, uh, we have battle scars in helping many customers across the globe. Um, Anil brings a wealth of expertise and, and we’re excited to hear his insights.
Uh, in the future of media and technology. Um, you know, he brings both perspectives, you know, from a, from a, uh, supplier to one industry, to now he’s, uh, enabling many industries, uh, uh, you know, providing critical infrastructure to a lot of companies, right? So, welcome to the show. Glad to be here, Vijay. Good to, uh, speak with you, right?
So first question, tell me real quick, uh, why did you agree to be on this podcast? Well, of course, anything for you Vijay. Uh, you know, in, in reality, uh, you know, we’ve gone, uh, back over a decade now. I think we’ve together watched the evolution of, you know, both the, the media and the, you know, telco or operator industries during that time.
Um, and, uh, you know, you and I have often chatted when we, when we meet, um, about. The evolution of these industries, the transformation being brought by cloud data and ai. And when we say it, you know, on a daily basis, it kind of sounds a little cliche, but it’s real, right? It’s actually happening. And uh, I think the best way, uh, to kind of share a perspective, to have conversations, right?
And so happy to have this one with you. Oh yeah. Yeah. Tha thanks again. Um, you know, you have had front row seat, uh, you know, to multiple industry transformations across media, entertainment, telco, and other consumer industries. What shifts you have seen, uh, that kinda surprise you and maybe not surprise you, you know, if you look back a year or two, um, and, and so maybe you can comment on that and so yeah, I think across, um.
Uh, all of the industries that, you know, my team supports and works on across, across the globe, uh, you know, we’ve, we’ve seen this, uh, ongoing journey to a, you know, cloud data and AI driven transformation that’s been underway. Um, and in many cases, um. No matter how large the customer, the organization might be, the reality is they face some very disruptive threats.
In some cases existential threats. Right? Not to be too provocative about it, but I, I think that the reality is, um, there, the dynamics in each industry, um, have led to, uh, scenarios where the most progressive companies from the board level on down have said, mm-hmm. Our mandate to transform, right? And they’ve set aggressive agendas and those that are doing it, um, are seeing significant results, right?
Um, what, meanwhile they’ve seen peers and competitors kind of, um, dismantle fall apart, lose market share, et cetera. So I, I think it’s a very, very important, um. Area of focus for every organization. You know, I think every consulting firm you talk to talks about digital transformation, but you know, it’s really fundamental business transformation that’s underway.
And so to your question about over the last couple years, right? I think the thing that is fascinating and surprising is how quickly the world, right? Every industry, every organization, private sector, public sector, has embraced, uh, generative ai. Right. And now of course, AG agentic ai, it’s happening much faster than the adoption of any other, uh, you know, step change technology.
And I think, um, that is really, really meaningful. Uh, and, you know, AI is going to shape the future of all of these industries. Right. Great. Great. And so. Uh, you know, in terms of, uh, uh, you know, how they monetize, uh, the, the content and, you know, be any type of digital service for that matter. When Netflix launched, uh, advertising, it was kind of a, a big advertising tier.
It was kind of big news, but content monetization through advertising has been there for a long time. You know, that’s how it started in the beginning, right? It’s nothing new now, you know, hybrid monetization models are. Um, you know, pretty much guaranteed everybody’s experimenting with the, um, and in terms of hyper personalization and, and what other models, uh, you are seeing.
And also, uh, you, we are likely to see, you know? Yeah, I, I, so I think there’s a few things in there, right? So let’s, let me separate it out. I think, um, you know, you’re, you, you’re absolutely right. Um, I. The combination of both kind of ad supported and subscriber based monetization has been around for a long time.
I mean, effectively that’s linear television, right. In some sense. Um, and in, in, you know, as over the last 15 years we’ve shifted to this direct to consumer paradigm, um, with streaming and, and OTT media organizations, I think have all realized that they don’t have a handle on the, on the. Overall cost model, right?
The operating cost model. What are the investments? How do you stay on top of innovation? How do you invest in content that ultimately is key? How do you super serve your audiences And do all of that in a way that allows you to not, you know, not just, um, cover your cost, but be profitable and grow And, and as we’ve seen very few, uh, direct to consumer.
Businesses, um, or media businesses on their own are in fact profitable. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I think that led the likes of Netflix and others to realize that in order to, uh, continue to invest heavily in the areas they need to invest in, like original content, uh, and new, new experiences that they need to expand their monetization.
Right. So that’s, you know, what’s led to, um. Hybrid monetization, fast channels, a number of different things. But I think, you know, as you said, this has been going on for years. In fact, in direct to consumer streaming, I remember, um, when I was at Unicorn Media, um, we, you know, we worked with CBS All Access, right?
Which was kind of a novel, innovative launch at that time from CBS, which is of course, part of Paramount. Um, and that was, you know, uh. They varied the content availability and freshness and access based on whether you paid for and, you know, the ad tier or an ad free tier. Um, and they showed that, that you could execute on this.
Right. And they did it across iOS and Android at the time. These were, you know, earlier years, but that’s like 15 years old. Okay. Right. Um, I think as we look now to. Um, the current environment where we’re headed, you know, you, you hit, you hit on this point specifically, we, we’ve been on this journey and, and you’ve heard me talk about this before, since the, you know, the donnay of the, of the web.
Um, the dream of kinda real one-to-one personalization, but it’s been 25 years and we, we haven’t really gotten there except now more than ever we have this opportunity to really drive real, hyper-personalization. The technology exists, it’s now a matter of can we organize, um, the value chains that deliver experiences to consumers in ways.
That will allow for successful hyper personalization. And I think you can take that in many to many different directions, right? And when that happens, where I as an organization, whether I’m a media company or some other kind of direct to consumer business, when I can truly hyper ize what I am delivering to you, in fact, it might, in fact it might even be what I am creating or developing.
On, on the fly for you, right? Because it’s personalized and I’m super serving you, that will open up different opportunities. For, um, new types of monetization pricing, you know, could be dynamic pricing, special offers, commerce integrations, microtransactions. And so that’s the world we’re ending, you know, heading to.
And before the complexity of managing that I think scared a lot of organizations, but now you have not only the technology to do it, but also, uh, AI can help you manage the complexity. Yeah. Now what you say makes a lot of sense. You know, I think the, the hyper-personalization, especially the IP based delivery, unlike broadcast media in the past, you know, you, you know who it is on the other end.
Right. You know, it’s a, I, I agree with you. I think we’re just starting this journey. Uh, once you know who it is, and so many times advertising, even today in digital advertising, and it’s like, it feels like they’re barking up the wrong tree. Right. So they, you know, sending stuff that the other side may not care.
Right. You know, so it’s, uh, so there’s so many ways to optimize. Uh, and you know, a lot of these things were talked about even in the traditional tv like commerce and telescoping and things like that. Uh, but a lot of those are possible and can be done cost effectively. Um, you know, and, and as you were saying, like it’s a, and also, uh.
Create value along the way for the consumer, not necessarily taking advantage of his eyeballs, but it’s, uh, creating a better experience. It’s, uh, yeah, it’s the hyper personalization is, is the key. I agree. And also it’s a, we are just starting this journey. Right. So, so you mentioned something, um, uh, in your last, uh, answer is the push to profitability, right?
Yeah. And, and you know, I think, uh. You know now more than our, you know, you know, even at the recent NAB, the mood has shifted. You know, I think over the past year, you know, many of the streaming service are looking to, hey, it’s not, uh, they want to grow responsibly, right? It’s a, yeah, you know, acquisition.
They still want to acquire users, but really paying attention to, you know, are we making money? You know, is this a good business? You know, is there a good, you know, economics? What changes are you seeing in terms of their technology, uh, purchases and the way they think about, you know, doing these transformations and from a, you know, profitability perspective?
Yeah. I think, um, I think this is a really important topic of discussion, right? I think, uh, several years ago, maybe four or five years ago. There was, um, you know, these analysts, uh, that watched the industry came out and said, you know, more or less, everybody that’s moving into streaming needs to own the technology stack.
Right? That support. And, you know, as you, you’ve been in this industry for a long time, you know, you see like the pendulum swing back and forth, uh, in terms of the ownership of, do I need to have the, do I need to own the technology, develop the technology, manage it, et cetera, or do I, can I outsource it? And it’s, you know, it’s always, it varies by organization, but I think, um, two years ago, those same analysts showed up and said, okay, maybe we had it wrong.
Maybe the reality is very few media companies can own the technology stack because it’s not their core competency and the amount you have to invest in the advancement and the continuous innovation that technology does not allow for those organizations to actually equally invest where they actually are differentiated, which is gonna be in the content, right?
And the things surrounding the content. So. I think a shift in media organizations is like, how do we unwind our, um, our ownership of this technology stack and who can we work with that can serve our needs agile, but handle it right in more cost effectively. Um, or if we are gonna maintain an ownership.
There’s very few companies like this, obviously, um, but they’re very large. They’re like, how do we do this efficiently? In a way, yeah, and I, and by the way, I think that’s the conversation that’s happening, but there’s another conversation that I think needs to be had, and I, I don’t know that it’s happening at the level that it should, which is this question of what does a media company look like in the future?
Right, because you know, the way, the way I put it to my, my good friends and colleagues, we worked together and we have for many years is if we stepped outside of our current roles and decided we wanted to start a net new media company, would it look anything like the large traditional media organizations that exist today?
And the answer is absolutely no. Right? We would use, um. Different tools and technologies. Our strategy for developing, creating, sourcing, acquiring content would be different. The nature of the content itself would be multi-format, multi, you know, and, and, uh, multi-platform. I think the monetization models would be different.
The use of which vendors and technology providers. Um, what does that media supply chain look like? What does the distribution chain look like? All of these things would be different. Right. And so that reality exists, which means you have an established ecosystem and then you have an emerging ecosystem, and you have an emerging creator economy.
And all of those things are gonna compete for the same finite, uh, amount of attention. That can be monetized. And so I think if you’re in the media business today, you need to be thinking about those other things as how do I embrace them? How do I service those, uh, emerging opportunities? Do I change the way in which I’m doing things?
And I, and I think that’s hard when you’re an established, entrenched organization with, you know, tens if not a hundred years of history. Um, and I think, I think that’s the major, one of the major disruptions that is heading our way. Yeah. Uh, I know you work with, uh, many of the media companies and, and kind of helping them, you know, what’s the roadmap from Okay.
They, we all, they know and you know, where they need to be. Right. And it’s a, you know, and, and then there’s a roadmap on how to get there. Um, is, is there one or two that comes to your mind that’s actually have a good roadmap and a good plan from, okay, here’s where we are. We’ve been around for a long time.
Yeah. But technology is available that we can be at a different place so we can actually create better value for our consumers. And, and so, uh, there one or two examples you can share. I think that it, it really, um, it really varies, uh, based on the space they’re in. So, you know, um, I think I’ll just point to a couple.
Right. And this is not comprehensive by any means. Okay. Yeah. Right, right. But you can, like within the context of what they do, we’ve been working with Fox Sports for years, right. My entire time at Google Cloud. And I think what’s really interesting is Fox Sports, obviously, um, a, a sports broadcaster that, uh, you know, is a, a leading sports media organization covering, you know, us as well as global.
Sports content. Um, they have, uh, and this, you know, they, they have embraced the use of, uh, innovative technology, um, and reduced their reliance on traditional vendors for early on, right before even this kind of generative ai uh, explosion happened right in the last couple years. And I think that Progressive has allowed them.
To drive greater efficiencies, do better storytelling, um, provide, you know, much more satisfaction for their employees who would like to be in the storytelling business, not in the, you know, um, hunting for content business. Right. And I think that, uh, that’s an example within their niche of a organization that is embracing technology to really.
Um, enhance the product that they’re developing, right. And the experience of how to do that. So that’s one. Um, and there’s many other examples there. You can, I can talk about with, with Fox Sports, um, you can look at, um, um, sports leagues, right? Um, major League Baseball has been a significant partner, uh, that we’ve worked with for, for many, many years now.
And their use of data and AI to really. Um, not only enhance the storytelling around baseball and the content experience for people who like to watch and understand all of the statistics and details, but to turn around and use that data also to help, uh, consumers and fans curate their own experiences and find the content they wanna find, um, right.
I think is, is a, is uh, an innovative use of technology, which again, all of these aren’t changing the nature of their business. They’re using technology to enhance and make it better. Right. And then the, the last thing I would say is I think that, um, uh, we’re starting to see, uh, companies, um, leverage personalization technologies.
Um, yeah. For, you know, kind of AI driven recommendations, AI driven and discovery to enhance the experience that you have as a viewer and a subscriber so that you actually have a much more fulfilling experience in your interaction with the streaming service, as an example that creates. A lot higher propensity to watch.
It creates greater retention, mitigates churn, which are of course metrics that, you know, everyone cares about. So I think there’s many, many examples of this. Um, and you know, I know one of the things you wanna talk about at some point is the sphere, but I think that the reality is that is with the traditional like broadcaster sports league.
Traditional media company, right? Then you have new immersive kind of experiences that are emerging and, um, and that’s a whole new world of opportunity that’s opening up. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think I, I, I kind of, uh, uh, one example, you know, we have seen very, uh, close his, uh, you know, NBA, you know how they.
Use technology to create that superior experience to the fan. Right. You know, and, and you know, it’s a really, an amazing team. Um, you know, I’ve been to the NBA Tech summit last couple of years, and you know what, what an amazing job they do. And, you know, it’s a really bring in the who and who of the Silicon Valley to their thing.
And, and more importantly, really, you know, when a fan. Based on who the fan is, if they, you know, you know, the have team and their view of the, uh, app is completely different based on the fan. And then, um, it’s, uh, yeah, you know, a lot is changing and um, it really opened my eyes, you know, after we started working with NBA and how tech can be used.
Right. So, so recently. Yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, yeah, I think that that, you know, the NBA is a great example, you know, we obviously know the same people there. I, I think one of the things that, um, is really the commonality across all of these is, um, it comes down to the leadership and the talent involved, right?
There are individuals, uh, in all of the organizations we just talked about. Who, uh, have really been innovative and progressive and understand how to take established organizations through this right transformation and change management. And I think whether it’s in media or any other industry, that is essentially probably the most important critical success factor.
Um, yeah, no, you’re so right. It boils on people just.
Um, the, you, you, you touched on the content discovery also, right? I recently Google published that people spend up to three hours weekly searching for content. I’m one of them, by the way, you know? Yeah. It’s like, it’s like you want to watch something. Okay. Where do I find it? You know, it’s, uh, um, you know, how is Google Cloud helping media companies, uh, leverage this multimodal AI to solve both content discovery and monetization challenges?
Yeah. This is a real problem. It’s been, it’s, you know, I, I think we’ve often referred to it as, you know, one is the paradox of choice. When you have a service and you have too many choices, you don’t know how to get to what you really want. And then the other is, I know what you want. And this just happened to me three days ago, where the problem, you know.
Got more complex because it was optimizing across what I, my daughter, my son, and my wife, each our interests we’re trying to find the thing. And then we finally agreed on a piece of content, a movie, but then we had to figure out where it was available. Right. Yeah. And so, um, I think that this, this, you know, first world problem that we have is in fact a pretty significant problem because not only do we have consumers unsatisfied.
Often this will lead to churn or abandonment, right? Like right. Forget it. We do something else. Um, and uh, and so I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to change that. Right. Um, so with within Google Cloud, obviously I talked about recommendations earlier. I think, um, recommendations and search are two critical areas of investment that are, um, truly leveraging the power of data and ai.
To actually, um, improve the user experience. So that one on the recommendation side, what is actually presented to you is curated based on, um, all the data signals that you’ve provided about you and your interests and you’re watching history, et cetera. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s continuously evolving and getting better.
Right? Right. Because you can, the more different sources of data you can leverage about the consumer, the better your. And the more you know about the content, the better you can bring those together to identify what are high propensity, um, viewing items. Yeah. The other side of that is search, which is how do I empower the user to not have to think about structuring their search query?
Right, right, right. Or fitting within, uh, or conforming to structured metadata. Instead, allow me to use natural language. Yeah, to actually find what I want. So I want to, you know, or, um, and, and more than that, uh, allowing me to, uh, search in a way that is independent of like actor and title, but, you know, it could be, um.
I’m looking for that movie that took place in San Francisco. It was a, you know, a vampire film and there was a scene where they’re driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and a red convertible. Like, why doesn’t the system know that? Because it should understand what’s in the content. Right? The third dimension beyond that is how do I now use, you know, AI and like superpowered AI assistance, right?
That actually understand the library of content and can say, Hey Vijay, what do you feel like today? Yeah, right. Let me have a conversation with you and ascertain what I might, you know, want to present. And like the, you know, the example of, you had a long day, it’s been a long week, it’s Friday evening, you’re tired, you’ve been traveling, you just want something lighthearted.
Right. I suggest, you know, falling comedies because I know you like these actors and you like these films. This is one that just entered our library that I think you’re gonna love. Right? Yeah. I mean, that’s like having a concierge that proactively, you know, comes to you, says, I know you’re gonna like this.
Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s, uh, so compelling. The, you know, which in turn creates a better experience, less propensity, churn, you know, once somebody goes away, it’s hard to bring them back. Right. It’s, uh, and, and you know, one thing you mentioned is, is really sometimes too much choice is a problem. Right. It is a problem.
Yeah. And, and, and, you know, and, and there did experiments actually, you know, uh, uh, people, if they were to choose from 40 different types of jams versus three different types of jams, you know, they did more sales than they had only the choice of three. Right. So, yeah. And, and, uh, you know, uh, yeah, I think creating that better experience is so critical.
We’re also using Google technology to actually. Predict what the user is likely to buy, and not confusing with 40 different choices. Right. It’s a, um, you know, next topic. It really is in live sports, you know, at at Evergen, you know, we kind of know from experience, you know, because it’s a digital stadium, right?
There’s no limitation on how many people can come in there. So we have seen. 70 million transactions in a, in a live sports event in Asia when India and Australia play cricket. You know, uh, in India, small country, a lot of people show up to watch, watch the game at the digital stadium, right? So, yeah. Yeah.
How, how is Google infrastructure evolving to support these intense demand moments? Right. I mean, it’s unlike, you know, what we have seen before, right? I mean, it’s really, I. The, the peak concurrency people coming in and wanting to watch and, uh, for sports and live events. Maybe you can speak to a bit about how the infrastructure is evolving to support.
Sure. I think that, um, let me speak to it in a couple, couple ways. One, of course, a Google. Continues to invest very heavily in, uh, new data centers. New, uh, increased capacity, uh, new zones and regions around the world are coming up every year, as well as, uh, investing heavily in kind of our undersea cables and our go global network.
I mean, there is, I don’t remember what the exact number, but you know, like the vast majority of internet traffic goes across the Google network, right? Correct. So. We, we have our Google Global network, um, is kind of unparalleled, right? And, um, our, uh, infrastructure scales dramatically already. I mean, we’re talking about live sports, but the reality is, you know, in retail, which is a massive business for us, we’ve been supporting Black Friday, cyber Monday for years, right?
Um, and, and we have taken that same kind of operational. Preparedness capability, um, and, um, uh, capacity planning and ramping kind of, uh, expertise and applied it to streaming events as well. Right. And some of the ones you’re referring to, we have supported. Um, I think that it’s a multi-dimensional thing, right?
I think there is the infrastructure readiness, um, and the scale. And, and I think for those, um. That is something that the public cloud providers, infrastructure providers, um, kind of are some of the few organizations in the world that have that capacity. And we certainly stand by kind of what we’re doing at Google, um, uh, on a continuous investment basis.
But I think beyond that, um, you have to build intelligence. Predictive kind of capabilities into all of our products, right? And so for us as an AI first company, we’ve been doing, even before the, you know, the last couple years we’ve embedded, embedded machine learning and AI in kind of all of our products, right?
And so our ability to predict. Uh, and, you know, scaling events and spin up resources and kind of do a lot of the intelligent work required to ensure that all of the technology at different layers of the stack already to support the scaling and the millions of, tens of millions of transactions, um, is built into the product set.
Um, but I will say that, and I think this is important to call out, that ultimately it also comes down to what is the operational team. Um, uh, and plan because like the events, you know, if you’re talking about India, Australia, cricket, you know, it’s not, um, like you can predict there’s gonna be a massive amount.
You also don’t wanna over-provision capacity so much that you’re wasting money, right? And so. You know, how do you do that intelligently? How do you use, you know, different sort of forms of data to predict how do you manage the fact that a lot of these people all show up at the same time? Right. That’s really kind of the, the, the peak event.
Um, yeah. You know, and you can’t give them a bad experience. Right. You’ll get a lot of frustrated people. Um, so I, I think that there’s a lot of, it’s a multidimensional kind of problem. I think the infrastructure is able to support it. I think the products are able to support it. Now it’s a matter of how do you, um, how do you operationalize it as an organization to leverage that infrastructure, um, and leverage the data to actually, uh, plan and be ready to respond to that scale right?
With, with the minimum amount of dissatisfaction for your, for your consumers. Yep. Yep. Makes a lot of sense. So, uh, you know, and you also oversee, you know, telecom, uh, domain, right? It’s, uh, and, and so, so media companies, many of them are new to the direct to consumer business and, you know, new to their, you know, back office support systems traditionally called.
Right? And at and t has been doing that for a hundred years, you know, so it’s a, and, and, uh, uh, and, and so. And, and some of these systems, you know, especially on the telco side, they’ve been around for a long time. Right. It’s a, and, and you know, there were a lot of those systems were designed during the time of regulation where changes happened at a very slow pace, right?
I mean, to take, you know, six months to get approval from a public utility commission to change the price on your telephone line or whatever, right? So things have dramatically changed for them, right? It’s. There are many around the table eating their lunch. Right. You know, so they, they all feel compelled that they have to transform.
Right. Uh, and they have to be more agile and nimble, you know, change, uh, come up with the new products, et cetera. Right. So, uh, and, uh. What approaches would you recommend for these executives that are faced with 20, 30-year-old systems, but they need to really, you know, launch these new revenue streams.
Right? But some of these transformations would be high risk, right? It’s, uh, you know, what, what would be your recommendation for them? You know, how, how do they think about it? Yeah, I think that, um, telecom in particular globally, um. These, these companies are part of the critical essential infrastructure, right?
Right. Um, that everyone relies on. And so they are, they have to be very, very, very risk averse, um, because they can’t, uh, they can’t jeopardize, uh, the availability, um, of their networks and their service. Right. Um, and you know, the problem that they, you know, that they deal with unfortunately, is that no consumer, you know, sings praises about their.
They’re communications provider, right? Everyone complains. Um, so it’s a, it’s a tough business to be in, but a very, very important one. Um, you, you characterized it very well. Obviously you’ve been in this space for a long time, of this kind of entrenched set of systems that are, you know, that these telcos or the CSPs are reliant on.
But they need to improve their agility, their flexibility, their responsiveness, um, and they want to take advantage of new capabilities that their old systems can’t support. Um, I think that, uh, there are many different, there’s no panacea, there’s no like right silver below, uh, for this. Um, so there’s multiple different, uh, things that need to be done.
One is, I think, um, I. Many of the vendors, right, that are providing these systems. And there are, there are, uh, you know, there are large established older vendors, and then there’s the newer, more agile vendors like Evergen, for example. Um, right, that vendors need to, um, really focus on making it easy to, for these or these customers to embrace, uh, new.
Um, data and AI driven cloud native solutions. Right, right. And, uh, have to work hand in hand with organizations that can handle the business process and change management piece of it, because that’s critical. Right? Right. I think that the telcos and customers are, where I’ve seen them be successful, um, is they’re implementing some of these solutions on.
Um, a new businesses, right? New, uh, new networks are spinning up, um, that are not, that are, that can actually be, um, built on a new stack, if you will. Right, right. As opposed to, and then what you end up doing is you have a transition plan. Once you have something solid, robust working, then you build a transition.
I, I do think, um, there is gonna be a bit of ripping the bandaid off, uh, yeah. At some point. Yeah. Because you ultimately get to a place where, yeah. The vendors that provide these systems are gonna say, look, the future is all over here. Yeah. And this is where we have to invest and I can’t continue to maintain this old stuff.
Because while there’s a existing line of business there, there’s no growth. Right? Yeah. So eventually the vendors working with the telcos, the systems integrators, and even the public cloud. Providers are gonna have to orchestrate together how to transition. Right. And um, and I think that’s underway now. Um, I think it’s a multi-year journey.
Um, but I think it has to happen. And, uh, your question was how do you, how do you address this problem? Right. I think you have to address it very carefully, um, because the technology. The, the new technology is not the issue. Yeah. Yeah. The how embedded and, and intertwined the old systems are. Right, right. I mean, I think you, you, you’re right.
There’s no silver bullet and there’s one path you outlined. You know, when you’re thinking of a new service, maybe think of a new stack, get the experience and then look at, you know, how you can look at, uh. Um, and, and then, you know, we, I recently did a podcast, it’s gonna come out in a month or two with, uh, Yon, you know, he is the CEO of Asteroids, like the Comcast of Malaysia.
They went through, uh, we worked together on a big transformation there. And, and, you know, Yon. Um, actually took this approach. We first started with their streaming service, even though they’re a traditional service provider, right? And, and then they had, you know, 20-year-old system. Uh, and then, uh, um, you know, we, we migrated them off of that and to, to cloud on our platform.
Right? So the really two things he mentioned that really, uh, uh, uh, struck with me is that, uh, one is save to invest. Right. They want to create value to the consumer. Right. These systems are also costing them a lot of money, right? That’s right. Yeah. And they say 50% of you know what is costing that money goes into really enhancing the product.
They do a lot of content creation themselves in Malaysia. Right. It’s a, so that’s one thing that, uh, which is in line with what you’re saying. The, um, you know, really the second thing is the flexibility he needs because the market changed completely, right? They used to be the only game in town. There are so many players now, right?
Yeah. Uh, so many choices for the consumer, uh, for them to really, uh, react to market feedback quickly, that agility and nimbleness, right? I said, even why do it? It’s a very risky, he said, if we don’t do it, we may die. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, which is the, again, you point, you made, um, existential issue. Yeah.
Existential issue. And so it’s, uh, you know, one thing, you know, and philosophically, you know, I, i, if somebody points a gun at, to my head and said, pick a religion, I would pick, obviously is it’s a question. So, so one thing that Buddha said, you know, all structures are impermanent. Yeah. To your point of, you know, these legacy vendors that have been there for a long time, they also have to change and help the customer, you know, put the customer first.
And so, but you know, it may look like solid, you know, rigid system. It’s been there and you know, but all structures are impermanent. I love that, uh, you know, quote from Buddha, but yeah. So, so good stuff. Um. So let’s talk about MSG, which is, uh, and I’ve been to this sphere, you know, you probably have been there.
Amazing experience, right? It’s a, uh, pro and I’m not a big fan of Vegas, but that’s one thing I’m gonna take my wife to go see, right? It’s, uh, um, we work with them. We are fortunate. You’re working with them very closely. We we’re also fortunate to work with them. With their sports teams and, you know, they have this Gotham, uh, app, uh, for, for the New York market.
Uh, one of the things, you know, we see them really look at, uh, uh, innovation is that combining offline and online, right? Yeah. Uh, meaning that, you know, how do you, same user. Um, that consumes the streaming service, you know, uh, you know, really combining their experience in their, whether they’re, uh, stadiums in New York area or sphere and, um, this one.
And, you know, uh, you know, how are you, you know, with the AI and really knowing the user and, you know, how, how do you see Google helping, um, them really give a great experience in both places online and offline? So. Yeah, I think, um, I think this, you know, this connected physical and digital, um, uh, experience.
Is something that multiple industries, um, are going through. You know, in, in retail they have this, this term, I’m not really fond of it, it’s called Fidgital. Right. And, um, they used to talk about, and they still talk about omnichannel, right? But it’s really about a unified or connected experience, whether you’re in the store or online.
Very similarly in what you’re talking about with the sphere or Madison Square Garden or, um. Any of the other forms of media, whether they’re music concerts or um, um, uh, or festivals or sports tournaments, and all of these things have. Um, both at kinda in venue physical experience as well as the digital experience.
Um, and even the digital experience. There’s also maybe a broadcast experience, right? So there’s multiple different forms of, um, of engagement. And I think what all of these organizations need to do is map that customer experience and say, how do I meet the customer where they’re at? Depending on what the, the experience is.
Now, our work with the sphere, of course, is really about the kind of game changing use of ai, generative media, AI to, uh, in the case of the Oz, you know, that was talked about and showcased at Google Cloud next, um, taking a hundred year old content. And using AI to prepare it for the world’s largest, highest resolution screen, right, in an immersive experience, which is pretty phenomenal.
So I, I also recommend that people go and when the Wizard of Oz is released in the end of August, I think I. A lot of us will be there. Um, so we’re very excited about that work. But I think to your point, um, we talked about Major League Baseball, the NBA, you can talk about, um, you know, pick, pick a, you know, it could be a label provider, it could be a concert, uh, promoter.
Ultimately, uh, the consumer should move seamlessly through their. Physical and digital experiences, um, across platforms. And a across moments could be me, by myself on my phone, um, when I am in transit, or it could be at home in a lean back experience, um, now in front of my connected tv. Or it could be, um.
Even in a social setting at a sports bar with a bunch of friends, or it can be the entire experience for the moment I buy the ticket and go through a frictionless, uh, access process to the physical experience. In the venue, not just watching the content, but everything surrounding it as well as the digital overlays and two tools, because I will use my device in my hand while I’m actually engaging.
Right. All of those things need to be compli, uh, complimented. And I think where this comes down to is do I have a singular view of the consumer? Yeah. Right. That’s unified singular view of Vijay across all of the experiences. And have I given you the incentive? Right, right. Through the value of creating for you to actually engage as that known user, right, so that you have the best frictionless experience, that you have access to the content, you get the hyper-personalization, so that if I’m watching a basketball game and I care about the, you know, the Phoenix Suns, then I’m gonna get all the additional supplementary content to support.
My experience through the app or through whatever I’m watching, right? I mean, there’s so many different layers of this, but it all comes down to, um, having a unified singular view of the consumer where the, uh, the contract between. Me as an organization and you as a consumer is one where I’m going to give you immense value that supers serves you.
That creates affinity, loyalty, and a lot of just enriched experience, which will allow you, you know, which will, um, incentivize you to make sure that I have all the data I need to provide you that hyper and that in of itself, you know, certainly we talk about. Improved satisfaction and value for the consumer, but it’s also retention and churn mitigation, it’s brand affinity.
And then all of that opens up opportunities for cross sell, upsell, you know, deeper segmentation that, oh, for the super, super fans, I’m gonna offer something exclusive that they’re gonna open their wallets and pay for. Right? Um, but the more casual fan will also have a great experience. Um, and I’ll monetize them at different levels.
Yep. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. You know, lots of good stuff here. Final question. You know, you, you’ve written about, uh, how the next decade in media will be defined by the disruption of content creation, you know, which is something you mentioned just now also, right? It’s a, um, just as the last decade was defined by disruption of distribution, right?
Yeah. Uh, what excite looking into the future, what excites you most about how cloud and AI will shape the next generation of media experiences? Yeah. That we have not discussed yet. So, yeah, I think, uh, you know, we could spend a whole podcast just on that, right? And it’s easier, right? Because it’s all exploratory.
I think, um, I think inherently, uh. Media creation will become increasingly cloud native and AI augmented, right? So, and that’s a spectrum, right? You’ve seen the things where there are like fully AI productions and studios now. Um, and that’s there and it’s new and we’ll see, you know, it’ll serve its purpose, but the entire spectrum of the creative endeavor.
Will be AI augmented in some way because whether it’s to draw greater efficiencies, whether it’s to empower creators to, um, unleash their creativity in different ways, um, it’ll accelerate the production and the, the ability to, uh, tell better stories. We give better experiences. Um. It’s also gonna allow greater reach, right?
So if I produce, if I’m a creative team and I produce an amazing piece of content, you know, my goal, um, may be that I want that content. To be accessible to as many people around the world as possible. So you have dubbing, you have, you know, subbing and dubbing translation, lip animation. You have the ability to take that content and depending on the parameters I give it, um mm-hmm.
Repackage it for different formats. Oh, it’s, you know, it’s made for the big screen, but now I want a vertical video version. I want to change the duration. I want one that becomes an audio only podcast. You know, there’s all of these things that I shouldn’t have to have creative teams go and then create the new formats, right?
AI can help me do. Which of course also ties back into, you know, greater reach, greater personalization, greater opportunities for monetization. So I, these are the things that I think we’re gonna see coming. Um, and I’ll tell you that, you know, we, you and I talk about our kids all the time, right? The next generations, this is like a no-brainer for them.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Anil, thank you so much for being part of the podcast. Um, uh, really enjoyed, uh, the conversation. I’m sure the users will have a blast listening to it, so yeah. Awesome. Well, it’s a lot of fun always talking to you, Vijay. I always learn something and, uh, I look forward to seeing you, uh, at the next big event,