We are at a junction in the history of communications. If we go all the way back to the beginning of electric communications, all the way back to original Morse code, we can chart the progression of how communication has evolved from low fidelity, low bandwidth, to high fidelity, high bandwidth.
The pandemic only sped things up. Slack, Twitter and Facebook are digital lifelines to the physical world. Video conferences, once relegated to the occasional corporate meeting, have been democratized and globalized, every chat, celebration, and event—no matter how important or informal—is streamed in real-time.
And yet while progress has greatly increased how much we can say and how fast, one aspect of communication has gotten worse: There’s too much of it. The information spigot is always on and always overflowing. Fiber optic networks and 5G and file compression have greatly sped up the amount of content and ideas and questions that reach us. But those technological advances have done nothing to help us make sense of it.
"Touchcast began with a simple idea: Can we use the power of machine learning—neural networks of computers that continually get smarter—to help us communicate better and comprehend more?"
When it comes to virtual events, there are tangible, visible ways to see this.
By harnessing neural networks, our virtual events platform transports participants from their home offices into immersive simulacrums of real-life, gorgeously produced events. The attendees appear in high definition as if they’re presenting to a massive town hall or on the stage of the Oscars or TED, when in fact they may be at a vacation home wearing flip flops and calling in from Zoom.
Artificial intelligence autocorrects their framing, their head positioning, their audio clarity. Essentially, the work of a dozen live event producers—camera crew, editors, directors, lighting designers, and more—is performed instantaneously by a dozen neural networks.
And yet that’s just the beginning.
Because what we’re most excited about are the things you can’t so easily see—how neural networks can instantly add context and curate what we communicate, making information better, more relevant, and more accessible even before it reaches you.
Take our event example again, and now imagine it’s a three day conference with over 100 speakers.
Harnessing AI, our platform automatically transcribes, translates, and dubs each presentation in real time, so that an attendee in Japan can listen in Japanese while a working mom in Madrid can read the live captions in Spanish. It also creates article versions, highlights key words for searchability, creates a Table of Contents for easy skimming, and autocuts video highlights of the most salient moments.
Using AI, a three day conference is instantly repackaged into a gorgeous, living website where attendees can pick and choose their content adventure—what they want to watch or read, when and how—as easily as they choose a show on Netflix.
We call this smart communication. And we think it’s the future of communication well beyond live events. A future in which all communications will flow through neural networks.
Take your weekly meeting briefing clients. Or consumer research on a new product. Or calls for strategy memos. Or gathering stakeholder feedback.
By collecting, collating, highlighting, and enhancing these communications, AI can make them better, more useful and more efficient.
More premium.
Consider if you could harness neural networks to focus on what’s important and cancel out the rest of the noise. Consider if you didn’t just get more email and Zoom meeting invitations, but better, smarter ones.
This isn’t just the future of communication we’re imagining. It’s the future we’re building.
Watch the full GTC talk ↓
With over 20 years of experience at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence and Communications Technologies, Edo Segal leads Touchcast in the pursuit of the future of communications. By fusing state-of-the-art advances in both Mixed Reality and Artificial Reality, Touchcast is facilitating the next generation of communications and collaboration experiences. In this new era of remote work and enhanced productivity, Touchcast is dedicated to supporting companies through their post-covid transformation journey by helping run some of the world’s top virtual events. For the past, present, and future, Segal's vision is to create unforgettable experiences for employees, customers and partners that engage, cascade and delight.