AI for the Media Industry: Application Potential and Automation Levels

Tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly used in the media industry, addressing a potentially wide range of application areas. Based on a survey involving media professionals and technology providers, we present a taxonomy of application areas of AI in the media industry, including an assessment of the maturity of AI technology for the respective application. As many of these applications require human oversight, either due to insufficient maturity of technology or the need for editorial control, we also propose a classification of automation levels for AI in the media domain, with examples for different stages of the media value chain. Both of these aspects are strongly linked to the role of human users and their interaction with AI technologies. The results suggest that human-AI collaboration in media applications is still an unsolved research question.