By-Soumendra Mohanty Being an IT powerhouse and the second-largest online market in the world, India has a conducive environment for artificial intelligence (AI) to flourish. At the same time, democratizing this technology in the country, has a different stance than the rest of the world, owing to India's diverse population, the abundance of data, and the scalability of use cases. The pandemic-ushered nationwide digital wave has fed into AI adoption and awareness. By 2025, the Indian AI market will reach 7.8 bn USD with organizations integrating AI with vision, edge computing, real-time tracking, and Industrial Revolution 4.0 to create unique and complex solutions. The Unfair Advantage As a country that quickly switched from paper to digital administration during the pandemic, India brings sheer expertise and scalability of solutions to AI implementation.

Over the summer, streaming giant and industry up-ender Netflix reported its first domestic subscriber loss since 2011 and its lowest quarterly subscriber growth in three years. Within hours, its stock value tanked $17 billion in a single day. You read that right: $17 BILLION. Clearly, no one is immune from disruption and this is especially true in the media and entertainment business--even those who helped create and spur them forward. Last year, we looked at digital transformation trends for media and entertainment focusing on things like the increase in video ads, a clamor for digital experience, and a rise in mobile data usage due to such high demand. All of these predictions have become a reality and heading into 2020, all of those things will likely to continue.

I went to UCLA film school, did graduate work in media studies, and early on worked as a development executive at 21st Century Fox. Most weekends I see three or four movies in theaters. Now I work in technology, and I'm witnessing firsthand its transformative effect on the media and entertainment industry. Technology is enabling the democratization of content--access any time, anywhere, on any device--and the impact on media and entertainment company business models and consumer interactions is deep and far-reaching. Recently I spoke with media and entertainment expert Jukka Paajanen, a cloud solution hub senior director at Oracle, about the opportunities and challenges emerging technology presents to the industry.

When people think of tech in media, their first thoughts are likely around digital platforms that bring more content to our fingertips. Now, leading innovations -– namely, AI and blockchain -- are enabling media companies to take this a step further by delivering even more compelling content to broader audiences. AI is being used to watch and understand live video in real-time to provide insights that enhance the viewer experience. Technologies such as computer vision and image recognition can tag video based on different characteristics. There is no better example of using AI to create dynamic experiences than in sports, where AI can identify exciting plays by evaluating players' actions or an audience's reaction.