Alexis Kestler
The amount of video content being produced daily is staggering. According to Statista, over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. It‘s impossible for media analysts to make sense of it all manually.
Fortunately, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have led to powerful video analytics tools that can extract valuable insights from videos quickly and accurately.
In this post, we‘ll introduce you to 5 of the best AI-based video analytics tools and show how media professionals can use them to enhance analysis.
What Are AI-Based Video Analytics Tools?
AI-based video analytics tools leverage computer vision and machine learning to extract meaningful information from video files of all formats and sizes.
These tools use complex algorithms that scan videos pixel-by-pixel to detect activities, objects, emotions, text, and events happening in live or recorded videos.
You can train the algorithms to identify anything imaginable in a video scene. For instance, you can build custom AI models to detect inappropriate content based on your guidelines. The model will then scan videos to flag anything that doesn‘t comply.
Video analytics tools work based on two core principles:
- Motion detection – examines each pixel to detect movement of objects
- Object recognition – identifies and tracks objects, detects new or missing objects
These capabilities allow video analytics to be used for security, surveillance, and detecting threats or suspicious behavior.
But the applications are expanding into industries like media, entertainment, and advertising. Brands are using AI video analytics for:
- Identifying brand mentions
- Gathering audience insights
- Moderating user-generated content
- Detecting counterfeit merchandise
Next, let‘s look at the key benefits of using AI video analytics tools.
Benefits of AI-Based Video Analytics Tools
1. In-Depth Analysis
Advanced video analytics tools can analyze videos to a depth impossible for the human eye.
The human brain can only process images seen by the eye for 13 milliseconds. In that time, it‘s impossible to notice every detail in a video.
But AI tools can examine video footage frame-by-frame to detect, track, and classify all objects in a scene. This granular analysis is invaluable for identifying security threats or suspicious behavior.
2. Increased Efficiency
Video analytics automates many tedious and time-consuming tasks like analyzing footage, extracting insights, and more.
Without AI tools, analysts would have to manually review hours of footage. Even then, they wouldn‘t catch everything an algorithm can.
For example, retailers can use video analytics to gain insights like:
- Customer demographics
- Peak foot traffic times
- Most visited sections
- Checkout wait times
This data extracted automatically by AI allows staff to focus on core priorities rather than manual analysis.
3. Hassle-Free Content Moderation
The boom in user-generated content makes monitoring incredibly difficult for brands.
AI video analytics tools can sweep through hours of content in minutes and flag anything that fails to meet compliance standards.
For instance, tools can detect:
- Fake brand logos
- Brand mentions
- Offensive content
This allows brands to moderate content easily and avoid legal issues.
4. Real-Time Alerts
Analytics tools can be configured to send real-time alerts when the AI detects something important like:
- Fake logo
- Brand mention
- Offensive content
Moderators can immediately address the alert. You can even set automatic event-based actions like sounding an alarm.
This allows organizations to respond promptly without any manual intervention.
Now let‘s look at 5 of the top AI-powered video analytics tools on the market.
1. Amazon Rekognition
Amazon Rekognition provides powerful pre-trained and customizable computer vision APIs for video analysis. It leverages deep learning for facial recognition, object detection, and more.
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Key Features
- Detect inappropriate content in ads and social media
- Identify facial attributes like emotion, age, gender
- Create collections of faces detected in videos
- Extract text from videos
- Label scenes and identify objects in real-time
Rekognition is trusted by Pinterest, PBS, and more for its versatility across industries like media, security, and advertising.
2. Google Cloud Video Intelligence
Google Cloud Video Intelligence simplifies video analysis using pre-trained models that can recognize 20,000+ objects, activities, and scenes.
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Key Features
- Filter inappropriate or explicit content for compliance
- Real-time shot change detection
- Insert ads in relevant video contexts
- Enhance search with extracted video metadata
- Detect and extract text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Video Intelligence can also automatically generate captions and subtitles from speech. And it has beta face and person detection capabilities.
3. Video Indexer
Video Indexer from Microsoft Azure extracts insights from audio and video files using AI to improve searchability and experience.
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Key Features
- Extracts spoken words, captions, tags and transcripts
- AI-based video editing capabilities
- Integrates with Power BI, SharePoint and more
- Fine-tune recommendations based on people/objects
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance
Video Indexer is trusted by leaders in media, education, and more for its innovative applications across industries.
4. Clarifai
Clarifai offers AI-powered video analysis focused on object detection and situation awareness, making it ideal for security and surveillance.
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Key Features
- Detect specific actions and behaviors
- Identify anomalies in real-time
- Improve response time for public safety events
- Built-in audio recognition for speech, music, and sounds
Clarifai provides top-tier video analytics to customers like Canva, Nvidia, and more. You get 1000 free operations monthly to start.
5. Lumeo
Lumeo is an intuitive no-code video analytics platform. It has pre-built AI models and drag-and-drop tools so anyone can analyze video content easily.
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Key Features
- 100+ ready-made AI models and tools
- Plug-and-play integration with existing systems
- APIs and Python nodes for custom integrations
- Built-in collaboration for faster development
Lumeo makes it easy for non-technical users to leverage enterprise-grade video analytics capabilities out-of-the-box.
Use Cases for Video Analytics
Let‘s look at some real-world examples of how video analytics is used in healthcare, retail, and security:
Healthcare
The University at Buffalo developed a smartphone app to detect autism spectrum disorder in children using video analytics.
The app tracks facial expressions and eye movements while a child views social scenes. It can accurately detect children with autism since their eye movements differ.
Retail
Amazon Go stores use video analytics to automatically detect and charge customers for items added or returned to shelves without checkout lines.
Amazon won‘t reveal the exact technologies used, but they likely involve computer vision and sensors to track customers‘ interactions with products.
Security
Security cameras capture people hundreds of times daily in crowded cities. Video analytics tools help monitor footage to detect threats.
AI allows much more robust surveillance than human guards could perform, assisting security teams in keeping infrastructure and citizens safe.
Conclusion
AI-powered video analytics tools provide game-changing capabilities for industries like media, security, healthcare, and more.
As video content continues growing exponentially, these tools will become crucial for organizations to extract value at scale.
In this post, we covered what video analytics is, top tools and use cases, and key benefits driving adoption across sectors.
The applications of AI video analytics will only expand further as the technology evolves. Any company handling large volumes of video content can benefit from exploring these innovative tools.
