Whether you need a house to live in or for investment purposes, a home loan can usually be arranged from a bank of your choice.

The eligibility criteria differ from bank to bank. Here are the five most important factors that feed into determining home loan eligibility criteria from all banks in Thailand:

1. Income: This is the important factor for defining the maximum loan amount you can borrow. We can categorise this by two groups – those receiving a wage or salary and the self-employed. Whichever category the applicant falls into, a steady and regular source of income is a must to ensure they have the funds to pay back the banks every month.

Salary men/women. If you work for any government department or at any registered company, you belong to this group. Pay slips, bank statements and an employer reference letter are the documents almost all banks demand.

Self-employed. If you have your own company or business, or have other sources of income such as owning rental properties or holding shares, you belong to this category. If you have tax-related papers and bank statements to show, you can certainly apply for a home loan.

2. Rate of interest: Home finance eligibility is always inversely proportional to the rate of interest. If the interest rate is higher, eligibility will be lower – and vice-versa.

3. Outstanding loans: Thai banks always recommend keeping your debt-to-income ratio between 50 or 80 per cent. This is to leave a window for future loans or to pay off any existing loans. Unsettled loans could be a great limitation on your eligibility.

4 Loan term: If you choose a longer tenure, your eligibility will increase. But the downside to this is that you will end up paying more interest.

The maximum loan term of most banks in Thailand is 30 years. Age is a factor that could impact the loan term, as the repayments have to be completed before the age of 60 or 65.

5. NCB report: Banks also examine your credit repayment history from NCB (National Credit Bureau), the country’s regulator and first credit information bureau. A negative record can bring down your eligibility significantly.

Smoother process

Applying for a mortgage doesn’t happen overnight, and you can make the mortgage application process a whole lot smoother when you prepare well in advance of application time. Our advice is to not quit your job, make sure you clean up your credit report, pay down your outstanding debt, begin saving. You are now good to go.

With technology leading the way in everything in our daily lives, online information gathering and applications for home loans are gaining momentum. Online application is a timesaving and convenient way to apply for loans and is becoming the preferred choice for many borrowers.

A one-stop home-loan application service platform such as somjai.co is the latest and easiest way. Homebuyers no longer need to walk into a bank branch to find out what offers are available, collect information online and offline, compare to find the best rate, calculate eligibility, submit the required documents and follow up on applications.

An online service, such as the Somjai Home Loan, may offer the easiest way to go online and compare various home loan offers in the market and make a list of banks most suitable for your needs. This can save a lot of time and effort.

The home-loan expert team will always be there

to provide special consultation service and ensure

you get the best deal in the market at the best experience.

The Somjai team also provides a home loan service for foreigners interested in purchasing condominium units in Thailand. Our English-speaking staff are ready to provide prompt service and make recommendations.

Netita Taechathasiri is co-founder and CEO of Somjai Home Loan, a startup in dtac accelerate batch 6.

According to a press release from ABB in Thailand, the growing adoption of robots in all walks of manufacturing is creating increased demand for workers with skills in programming and operating robots, and many new career paths.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), was signed by Sirichote Singsa, vice president of ABB in Thailand and Associate Professor Dr. Komsan Maleesee, Dean, Faculty of Engineering, KMITL.

“I’m pleased to see this MoU in place to create synergy between KMITL and ABB; cooperation in educational resources development as well as transfer of knowledge and technology in development of the industrial robots in various industries. This is in line with the Thailand 4.0 policy that is targeting innovation as a means of development,” Sirichote said.

Associate Professor Dr. Komsan Maleesee added: “The collaboration with ABB is a significant milestone for KMITL, especially in the area of nurturing students with knowledge of industrial robotics to equip them with the necessary skills to be well-placed in Thailand’s changing and growing industrial landscape.”

KMITL was founded in 1960 in Nonthaburi province as a telecommunications training centre under the technical support of the Japanese government and was later named the Nonthaburi Institute of Telecommunications. After moving to a new location at Ladkrabang near Suvarnabhumi Airport, the campus became King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang.

Engineering studies have been part of KMITL since it was founded, with a course on telecommunications engineering, and the institution is now recognised as one of the top science and technology universities in Thailand.

This will allow businesses that use SAP solutions to benefit from the simplicity and agility of leading HCI technology to deliver a modern IT architecture for SAP’s leading in-memory relational database platform, Nutanix said in a press statement.

SAP has certified the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS platform with AHV virtualization for SAP HANA as part of SAP’s new HCI certification program. SAP HANA is revolutionizing the speed of data processing for reporting, analytics and computational tasks. Nutanix has proven the performance and scalability required for successful SAP HANA enterprise deployments, along with simple Day-2 operations of SAP environments. This includes the ability to deliver superior throughput rates with minimal latency, as well as ensure high availability during periods of heavy database usage, Nutanix said.

“We are delighted to announce this achievement. As customers increasingly re-platform their portfolio of enterprise workloads on Nutanix, our certification will enable them to use a single platform for all their workloads,” said Sunil Potti, Chief Product and Development Officer, Nutanix.

“The certification for SAP HANA gives our customers a more modern infrastructure option. Enterprises will be able to leverage Nutanix and SAP to deliver value to their organizations by powering their database services, analytics processing, app development and more — with predictable performance and linear scalability.”

Businesses that use SAP solutions will be able to leverage the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS platform in production and non-production environments to rapidly provision, simplify management and easily scale their IT infrastructure for faster time to value for SAP HANA and other SAP applications.

Through the new service launched on Wednesday, users could now enjoy the GrabCar Plus service with fleet allocation priority and shorter waiting time, while with the Rent a GrabCar service, passengers could visit multiple destinations with just a one-time booking on the Grab app with an adjustable duration, the release said said.

“We want to introduce the latest services, GrabCar Plus and Rent a GrabCar as a set of GrabCar services aimed to address various users’ needs and provide extra convenience to them,” Grab Indonesia managing director Ridzki Kramadibrata said in the release.

He said the Rent a GrabCar service was specially designed to address passengers’ needs who wanted to visit multiple locations in the city, while users could transit whenever and wherever according to their needs during the rental duration.

“The launch of Rent a GrabCar also enables driver partners to get incomes through Grab, while at the same time enjoying incomes through fixed fares per hour. Grab app also has a real-time tracking feature, in which passengers can know the exact driver partners’ locations during the transit,” Ridzki added.

Currently, the Rent a GrabCar service is available in various cities in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Bali, Manado and Makassar.

Speaking at the Google Cloud Next London ‘18 event, AirAsia group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said, “It’s a huge mission, but we’ve never done anything easy.”

“We are now in our next phase of development where we are expanding beyond air transport, and digitalising our operations and processes to become more efficient.”

Google Cloud will allow AirAsia to make full use of the mountain of data it already owns, opening up opportunities for the carrier to build new businesses.

AirAsia is building two big platforms – airasia.com, its one-stop digital travel platform to meet the travel needs of customers for flight, accommodation, tours, ground transport and entertainment; and BigLife which it claims will be “like Kayak, Tripadvisor, Groupon and eBay rolled into one”.

“BigLife will incorporate all the investments under our digital arm Redbeat Ventures, such as our money app BigPay, in-flight connectivity platform Rokki, online marketplace Ourshop and logistics services RedBox and RedCargo.

“Both platforms will help drive more business into AirAsia with the help of data,” he said.

According to Google Cloud chief executive officer Diane Greene, AirAsia started using Google’s services with G Suite to transform the way the company works.

“Now, with our advanced analytics platform and machine learning services, AirAsia will be able to digitise every aspect of its business to better serve its customers,” she added.

AirAsia also hopes to use Google Cloud to maximise operational efficiency and reduce risk through predictive maintenance, real-time weather forecasting and crew optimisation.

On top of that it aims to improve demand forecasting and targeted marketing and provide more personalised experiences to increase customer loyalty.

AirAsia will also be able to enroll its technical teams in the same programme Google Cloud uses to train its engineers, allowing the airline to build its own internal machine learning system.

To view Tony’s presentation on how AirAsia will work with Google Cloud to become a travel technology company, visit g.co/cloud/nextonair18.

The move comes after Facebook also increased anti-harassment measures, following a survey which said young victims of online abuse feel social media firms aren’t doing enough to fight the problem.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said artificial intelligence is being used to detect signs of bullying and then automatically flag content for review by staff from the image-oriented social network.

“This change will help us identify and remove significantly more bullying,” Mosseri said in a blog post.

“It’s a crucial next step since many people who experience or observe bullying don’t report it.”

Rolling the technology out across the entire social network is expected to take a few weeks.

In another move, a filter that enables Instagram users to detect and hide bullying remarks from Instagram feeds or profiles was extended to comments on live videos, according to Mosseri.

In the spirit of inspiring people to be nice to one another, Instagram also added a camera effect which can be used to adorn images with hearts or the word “kindness” in a variety of languages.

“Online bullying is complex, and we know we have more work to do to further limit bullying and spread kindness on Instagram,” Mosseri said.

Last week Facebook said its users will be able to hide or delete groups of comments, including responses, instead of having to remove them one at a time.

The network also began letting people report bullying or harassment on behalf of friends reluctant to complain to the social network themselves.

A majority of US teenagers say they have been victims of online harassment or bullying, most commonly name-calling, a Pew Research Center survey found in September.

It said that 59 percent of US teens reported online abuse, and 63 percent said it was a major problem for people their age.

The survey found that most young harassment victims feel that teachers, social media firms and politicians are doing a poor or fair job in addressing the problem of cyber bullying — an issue which has drawn the attention of US First Lady Melania Trump and Britain’s Prince William.

Intel said in a press statement that preorders for the new processor begin immediately.

The announcement was made as part of a series of new desktop processor introductions that will enable amazing performance and platform features to meet a range of consumer needs from gaming to content creation.

New processors introduced include the first 9th Gen Intel Core processors, new Intel Core X-series processors and the Intel Xeon W-3175X processor.

“Our goal is to deliver leadership performance across all computing segments and product lines,” said Anand Srivatsa, vice president and general manager, Desktop, Systems and Channel, within the Client Computing Group at Intel.

“Today’s announcements underscore our ability to do exactly that, including, hands-down, the world’s best processor for gaming. Whether a gamer, a creator or an expert using the most advanced workstation applications possible, Intel and our partners are focused on delivering balanced platforms with real-world leadership performance and robust capabilities that exceed their needs.”

The 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K brings an exceptional level of performance to the desktop product line, signified by the first Intel Core i9 brand in the mainstream desktop segment. All three of the 9th Gen Intel Core processors unveiled today (i5-9600K, i7-9700K and i9-9900K) enable fast, immersive experience for gamers, with up to 8 cores and 16 threads, up to 5.0 GHz single-core turbo frequency, and 16 MB Intel Smart Cache, the statement said.

9th Gen Intel Core desktop processors deliver amazing performance, including unlocked3 “K” SKUs at each brand level and up to 40 platform PCIe 3.0 lanes for system expandability for gaming, creating and overclocking. Improvements in this generation include:

·         Enabling more than 220 FPS on three of the most popular global PC game titles.

·         With Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 delivering up to 5.0 GHz single-core frequency, gamers can enjoy their favorite games with up to 10 percent5 more FPS across popular gaming titles compared with the previous generation, as well as up to 37 percent more FPS compared with a 3-year-old PC.

·         Capture game play, transcode and stream while playing. With this type of megatasking, gamers can enjoy up to 11 percent7 more FPS compared with the previous generation and up to 41 percent more FPS compared with a 3-year-old PC.

·         Video editing improved on Adobe Premiere* – Up to 34 percent9 faster video editing compared with the previous generation and up to 97 percent faster compared with a 3-year-old PC.

·         Overall system performance improved up to 15 percent better as compared with previous generation and up to 40 percent as compared with a 3-year-old PC.

·         Overclock these new processors with the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel XTU), a precision tool for advanced overclocking, and take advantage of the additional thermal headroom with solder thermal interface material (STIM).

To realize the full potential of the new 9th Gen Intel Core processor, Intel is introducing the new Intel Z390 chipset. The Intel Z390 chipset includes high-speed integrated USB 3.1 Gen 2 and integrated Intel® Wireless-AC with support for Gigabit Wi-Fi speed. The 9th Gen Intel Core processors are also compatible with all Intel® 300 Series chipset motherboards for more consumer options.

Preorders for the 9th Gen Intel Core processors and Intel Z390 chipset motherboards begin today from a variety of global vendors and retailers.

Intel also announced seven (i7-9800X, i9-9820X, i9-9900X, i9-9920X, i9-9940X, i9-9960X and i9-9980XE) new Intel Core X-series processors for Intel’s most scalable desktop platform with a variety of core counts and I/O capabilities, as well as details on the Intel Xeon W-3175X processor. Designed with high frequencies and platform features for both lightly threaded and heavily threaded workloads, these processors are designed to handle the most demanding tasks and applications. Both products are built on the Intel® Mesh Architecture, which increases memory and I/O bandwidth, while decreasing latency – a critical need for the demanding workloads of creators and experts.

The new Intel Core X-series processors offer scalable options ranging from 8 to 18 cores with premium performance and platform technologies that help creators turn their imaginations into realities. With up to 18 cores, 36 threads, 24.75 MB Intel Smart Cache, and up to 68 platform PCIe lanes, Intel Core X-series processor-based systems enable creators to quickly and simultaneously record, encode, edit, render and transcode.

With Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 delivering up to 4.5 GHz single-core frequency, the most critical workloads can be directed to the processor’s two fastest cores, optimizing for lightly threaded performance when necessary. This means customers do not have to make a tradeoff between choosing a processor for lightly threaded or heavily threaded workloads.

Intel Core X-series processors will also enable software developers to write applications that take advantage of Intel® AVX-512 instructions to accelerate computing performance for parallel workloads.

For the select, highly threaded and computing-intensive applications such as architectural and industrial design and professional content creation, Intel will deliver the unlocked3 Intel® Xeon® W-3175X processor. This new 28-core Intel Xeon processor was built with real-world performance in mind for these large, intensive workloads with up to 4.3 GHz13 single-core turbo frequency, 56 threads and unlocked for those who want to push performance even higher. This platform also provides 38.5 MB Intel Smart Cache, 6-channel DDR4 memory support with up to 512 GB at 2666 MHz, and ECC and standard RAS support.

The new Intel Core X-series processors will be available in November; the Intel Xeon W-3175X processor will ship from Intel in December.

To celebrate the launch of the new 9th Gen Intel Core processors, Intel is hosting the 9th Gen Intel Core i9 Processor Dreamstakes to give away nine unique, once-in-a-lifetime VIP trips to world-class esports and gaming events, including Intel Extreme Masters, the Overwatch League, ESL One and the NBA2K League.  In addition, thousands of digital codes for some of the most popular games will be given away with this sweepstakes.  Visit corei9.intel.com to view official rules and enter for a chance to win starting on Nov. 5, 2018.

The US internet giant said it will “sunset” the Google+ social network for consumers that failed to gain meaningful traction after being launched in 2011 as a challenge to Facebook.

A Google spokesperson cited “significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumers’ expectations” along with “very low usage” as the reasons for the move.

In March, a security audit revealed a software bug that gave third-party apps access to Google+ private profile data people meant to share only with friends.

Google said it was unable to confirm which accounts were affected by the bug, but an analysis indicated it could have been as many as 500,000 Google+ accounts.

“We found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any profile data was misused,” Google said in a blog post.

It was referring to application programming interface software for the social network.

The data involved was limited to optional profile fields, including name, age, gender, occupation and email address, Google said.

Information that could be accessed did not include posts, messages or telephone numbers, a spokesperson said.

Privacy pressure

Google did not specify how long the software flaw existed, or why it waited to disclose it.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Google executives opted against notifying users earlier because of concerns it would catch the attention of regulators and draw comparisons to a data privacy scandal at Facebook.

Earlier this year, Facebook acknowledged that tens of millions of users had personal data hijacked by Cambridge Analytica, a political firm working for Donald Trump in 2016.

“Every year, we send millions of notifications to users about privacy and security bugs and issues,” a Google spokesman told AFP.

“Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice.”

The company said it determined its course of action based on the data involved in the breach, lack of evidence of misuse and challenges in accurately determining which users to inform.

Google will wind down Google+ during the coming 10 months to allow people time to download pictures, videos or other data they want from their accounts.

Meanwhile, Google planned to add new workplace-oriented features to enhance the appeal of Google+ as a “secure corporate social network” to be used inside business operations.

“We have many enterprise customers who are finding great value in using Google+ within their companies,” the internet firm said.

“Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions.”

Phones and email

As a result of the security audit, Google plans to allow users to more tightly control what data is available to applications that sync with Google accounts or its free Gmail email service.

“Going forward, consumers will get more fine-grained control over what account data they choose to share with each app,” Google said.

Applications tailored to augment Gmail will also face new rules regarding data handling and be subject to security assessments, according to the company.

Applications for use on Android-powered smartphones that seek phone or SMS data will need to conform to stricter rules when it comes to calls or text messaging, Google said.

THE App Store is a huge part of Apple’s business, perhaps because of its ability to profoundly transform the way people live their lives or enhance the way people pursue their passions. It’s said that there is “an app for everything” and that seems true, including being able to create or play games or get more things done in a day.

The App Store may be the best place for people to discover content and apps that help them pursue their passions. In the period since the App Store was launched a decade ago, it has truly transformed how people live. In the business sector, it has created concrete companies, tens of millions of jobs and supported new industries.

The App Store is now live in 155 countries, offered in 28 languages, and accepting 44 currencies.

At the WWDC 2018 conference for developers, Apple announced that it had paid US$100 billion (Bt3.28 trillion) to developers since the App Store’s 2008 launch, making it the best place for them to be rewarded for their hard work and creativity.

Last year, Apple unveiled an all-new App Store with dedicated taps for games, apps to help customers find what exactly they were looking for along with helping them discover apps.

Through the “Today Tap” function, customers can browse hundreds of stories to help them discover new apps. The function is within the grasp of more than a billion people around the world.

Following the company’s aim to make Apple Music locally relevant, the App Store is curated for customers in Thailand. People often find truly unique collections for the local customers in as the Kingdom can boast one of the most vibrant and exciting developer communities in the world. And that is doubly so for Southeast Asia.

U Spark

Kiratijuta Bhumichit or Fair, 25, developed U Spark. He is also a lecturer in the Science and Technology Faculty, ABAC.

U Spark, a university solution app, is intended as a one-stop student service, a student-centric education platform. Students can create and customise all their study-related details in U Spark. That includes personal education data such as grades and current GPA, learning credit units, courses and curriculum, along with classroom and exam timetables.

But it is not limited to use as a university app, but rather can play the role of a personal education assistant for the student. For example, the feature called “estimated grade” can calculate which grade (A, B, or C) the student needs to achieve in a certain semester if they want to receive a learning honour reward.

It is the first app enabling students to register for courses this way. It also allows students to manage their own learning plan in each semester before registering. The app will show available schedules for student to choose from. Students can register immediately via the app, and pay for their registration via mobile banking.

This app has been implemented and used at ABAC University for three years, and two other universities are planning on adopting it.

“This app came from my personal pain point when I was a student – I had trouble doing my course registration for each semester,” said Kiratijuta.

He developed the first version of the app to solve his own pain-point. At the time, it had just three basic features – grade results, classroom timetable and student profile. He released it on the App Store and told his friends to try it out. A month later, 80 per cent of the university’s students had downloaded his app.

The app is now commercialised under a subscription model. The university buys this solution, paying him per user. All of ABAC’s more than 15,000 students use the U Spark app.

Earth Atlantis

Anucha Aribarg, creative director of Pixel Perfex, developer of Earth Atlantis, describes the app as a shooting game in art style, with all of the game graphics and content presented in a drawing format.

Earth Atlantis was launched just a few months ago, after it enjoyed success on console game devices including Nintendo, PlayStation and XBox. The paid app is available in 12 languages. Anucha says he earns a good income from selling the game.

Kooup

Arwut Sanpatchaya, CEO of Fugang Company, Kooup’s developer, describes the product as the most secure “seeking a mate” app. He claims that Kooup has the largest number of downloads in Thailand within the category of mate-seeking apps.

Members can verify a photo of the match they are chatting with.

Before developing the app, Arwut spent five years developing and overseeing the match-making “Koo 25 Up” website.

It had 80,000 users with 2,600 active users per day. Then two years ago, Arwut turned to developing the mate-seeking app, Kooup.

He claims it has 750,000 registered people, around 80 per cent of them in Thailand, and has 26,000 active users per day. Average users are age 25 to 35, with females and males in equal numbers. The app is now available in four languages: Thai, Vietnam, English, and China.

“We use big data in create value-information for our users. By estimate, this app encourage several ten-thousand couples to be engaged via app,” said Arwut.

He says the company is now monetising the app via the “freemium” model. Basic features are available for free. VIP members can access extra features such as more greeting messages per day (it offers 10 greeting messages per day for the free version), and targeting potential mates through personalised specifications – after they buy a coin to pay for the features.

“The App Store is a place for developers to generate revenue. It is easier than the past,” said Arwut. The app is popular among people age between 25 and 35. They are familiar with this kind of app and see it as an opportunity to find their right match.

Pastel Keyboard

Ekkachai Charoenpatanamong-kol, founder and CEO of i-App Creation, said that Pastel Keyboard is designed for Asian users and includes a cute and useful concept. It has been in the top rank of paid apps since launching three years ago, and was Apple’s “Best Paid App of the Year” in 2016-2017.

Pastel Keyboard was borne after Apple announced at WWDC it would allow developers to careat extension keyboards for iPhones and iPads. Ekkachai said he wanted to be in the first group of developers to join the new venture with Apple.

Pastel has reached around 300,000 downloads, with around 80 per cent from Thailand, and 20 per cent from the rest of Southeast Asia.

“For example, QuickText is a useful feature,” said Ekkachai. “It helps users to keep their frequently use sentences such as email address and signature – just tap once and no need to repeat typing ever.

Meanwhile, Calculator helps users to easily do calculations on the keyboard.”

There are now over 6,000 themes available on the Pastel Keyboard app.

Content on Pastel Keyboard is developed by the company and its partners.

The company creates its own keyboard them, and also works with Internatinal IP to develop theme keyboards with cute characteristics, such as Sanrio.

Moreover, Pastel Keyboard includes themes developed by designers, artists and creators. They can submit themes on the Pastel Crafter. It is a platform allowing local creators to sell their theme to Pastel Keyboard.

“We opened Pastel Crafter a year ago, and are focusing on this with the aim to help local creators to show off their designs. We will share success with local creators. We share revenue with creators,” said Ekkachai.

Apple Music fans: Polycat, D Gerrard, Violette Wautier and Earth Patravee Srisuntisuk.

Apple Music hits the high notes

APPLE MUSIC has also become an important part of Apple’s business since its launch three years ago. Apple Music has become the fastest growing music streaming service in the world, with 50 million users and a catalogue of 45 million songs.

Apple Music is all about human curation.

According to the Thai band Polycat, people now have more choices to enjoy music. There are many more small and new upcoming artists, since it is easier to produce music and the Apple Music platform facilitates people being able to make new discoveries.

Polycat are heavy fans of Apple Music, as they can easily share their music library and it helps them focus their energy on the creative process of crafting the next single.

Given the massive size of the Apple Music library, almost everything they need is there.

Violette Wautier says Apple Music addresses young people’s music listening lifestyle, because they prefer to search for their own favourite songs and keep different playlists for different emotions.

Apple Music also offers the chance for artists to reach new groups and a wider audiences since the library has a lot of users worldwide that go beyond the local Thai market.

Artists can demonstrate their music and their own personality through the new channel, says Patravee Srisuntisuk (@earthpatravee). She particularly likes Live Session, which has become like her own personal music room where she can share her music with her friendly audiences.

AI has been adopted by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology to implement services and tools that facilitate information sharing and collaboration, along with supporting decision-making and problem-solving. These initiatives have increased efficiency and brought about more personalised services for Thais.

While AI has been widely employed across industries, there remain many opportunities to be exploited by Thailand’s $14-billion media and entertainment industry. Broadcasters and media firms in Thailand face efficiency challenges in terms of delivering relevant and personalised content to consumers. An Ooyala poll in December 2017 revealed that 7 in 10 Thai media executives view their media operations as only minimally efficient or not efficient at all. In particular, 25 per cent of respondents highlighted the need to automate their entire operational value chain.

Drawing on the large amount of data generated from the consumption of videos, AI could improve the management and delivery of content as well as automate operations. Beyond that, AI could deliver better insights to help media executives make informed decisions and develop sound strategies for their business.

Here are three things AI could do for content production. 

Make worthy content

Content producers are in a race to make original and creative content that appeals to consumers. More often than not, this process requires an extensive review of past content to gauge viewers’ interest and avoid duplication of content.

AI makes it easier for the publisher or broadcaster to understand the specific preference and behaviour of consumers by leveraging machine learning. For instance, if user X watches video A then clicks to watch video B, we can infer that the likelihood of user Y also wanting to watch video B is high if they had also watched video A. These patterns feed into a powerful neural network of decision-making that content producers could rely on to create personalised content for consumers.

Couple this with an AI-powered in-depth calculation, which tells content makers the type of content they should prioritise and focus their production spending on. A decision-maker would be more empowered to make a calculated decision rather than relying on intuition or superficial assessment. Imagine that you have a hunch to proceed with producing a family drama series as the last such series was a success. However, once you’ve factored in the full production costs against your revenue and returns, you might realise that a comedy series would be more profitable.

Give content a re-birth

As a lot of money is being spent on producing a piece of content, the ability to make the most out of it is key. Localisation of the content to cater to each market’s needs and relevance is one way – and AI could help speed up the process. Tech giants including Microsoft and IBM have AI tools that makes it easier to transcribe or translate audio into other languages, so that you can sell your content to new markets.

Leveraging existing content is another way to profit. We can almost always hear the same pain point from broadcasters or publishers: “I don’t even know what I have in my archives at this point.” Locating, let alone monetising, relevant footage to supplement a news bulletin or a documentary often becomes a huge challenge for content companies as they sift through the vast amounts of video assets that sit in their archives. With AI, media organisations can index existing content with powerful metadata capture techniques, enabling them to easily identify and repurpose that archived content.

Monitor live events

The challenging issue with live events is that there are a lot of moving parts and if one thing goes wrong, it could cripple the entire event. That also means that monitoring a live event or troubleshooting issues is typically performed in silos, leaving media organisations in a fix as they try to accurately pinpoint and resolve issues. For example, AI could watch out for unexpected spikes in viewership during the live broadcast and alert companies immediately to add server capacity and prevent the event from crashing. This gives production companies the opportunity to monitor and troubleshoot more quickly and efficiently, sometimes even before they happen.

Never too late for AI

The benefits of AI are exciting. Streamlined workflows, increased efficiencies, and improved monetisation are all potentials that could very well be fulfilled.

Additionally, with Thailand becoming an increasingly mobile population, only media companies able to deliver content in various modes and formats in a timely manner will gain.

However, AI is still in its nascent stage and still ramping up across sectors. While it will in the foreseeable future become more advanced and integral in our tasks, that does not mean that human participation would be forfeited. Ultimately, AI should play the role of a work-partner able to give insightful answers, but it will still be up to humans to make the right decision.

Phil Eade is senior director for media platform business development, APJ, at Ooyala.