Go FAST & scale: How AI is reshaping APAC broadcasting — from control room to channel launch

By Shaun Lim

Across the Asia-Pacific broadcast ecosystem, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are moving beyond experimentation and into core operations. What began as isolated tools for tagging or graphics enhancement is now embedded across production control rooms, newsroom workflows, and channel playout systems. For broadcasters facing tighter budgets, expanding content libraries and the rapid growth of free ad-supported streaming television (FAST), intelligent automation is increasingly a structural requirement rather than a competitive differentiator.

From orchestrating live production to accelerating asset discovery and enabling software-defined channel launches, AI is reshaping the broadcast value chain end to end. Automation is not replacing editorial judgement or creative control, but reducing manual touchpoints, improving reliability, and allowing teams to scale output without proportional increases in cost or headcount. In a region as diverse and dynamic as APAC, that combination of efficiency, agility, and governance is becoming critical.

The impact is perhaps most visible in live production environments, where precision and timing are paramount. In control rooms across the region, Vizrt is embedding automation directly into the mechanics of broadcast storytelling. Through its Viz Mozart system, repetitive and complex sequences, from camera switching to graphics playout and virtual set changes, are increasingly orchestrated through software, reducing the risk of on-air errors while allowing production teams to focus on editorial delivery rather than operational choreography.

Automation at Vizrt, however, does not stop at the control room layer. Beyond live switching and graphics orchestration, the company has been extending intelligence deeper into media workflows.

Last year, Vizrt and Aiconix announced a partnership to integrate the latter’s DeepVA AI platform with Viz One’s media asset management (MAM) workflows. The move signals a broader shift: applying AI not only to how programmes are produced, but to how content is indexed, discovered, and repurposed across increasingly complex archives. 

James Scott, Senior Product Manager, MAM, Vizrt, told APB+, “Vizrt’s partnership with DeepVA brings simplicity and speed into its MAM system, Viz One. The integration adds people and object tags to the timeline, as well as visual summarisations to the content automatically, dramatically reducing the time it takes to catalogue media content and have it ready to be discovered and retrieved by users.

“This means content teams can dramatically speed up their reviewing workflows, quickly tagging new faces and quick quality control reviews, rather than watching material end-to-end.”

As AI-driven metadata becomes more deeply embedded in production workflows, questions around data governance and compliance inevitably follow. This is particularly pertinent in APAC markets, where regulatory environments and data sovereignty requirements vary widely. For many broadcasters, the value of automation must be balanced against control over sensitive media assets and training data.

To address these concerns, Vizrt is positioning sovereign AI deployment as a key differentiator, as Scott explained, “Sovereign AI solutions allow AI to be run within the customers’ own infrastructure, be that on-premises or cloud. This gives a more transparent cost of operation, whilst providing assurances that media and training data is leaving their infrastructure.

“Integrating DeepVA into the latest version of Viz One works like an add-on to media teams, where they can pick the best AI models and capabilities that can reflect their different content needs. Because the data is captured and retained within the customer’s operation, data compliance and governance is simplified by removing the need to validate data usage by third-party services.”

While metadata intelligence and sovereign deployment address how content is discovered and governed, another transformation is unfolding at the distribution end of the value chain. As FAST platforms proliferate and regional broadcasters experiment with niche and event-based channels, the economics of channel launch and playout are being fundamentally reworked.

Here, Grass Valley is approaching automation from an infrastructure perspective. Rather than focusing solely on asset intelligence, the company is applying software-defined orchestration to the mechanics of channel creation and delivery.

Built on its Agile Media Processing Platform (AMPP), Grass Valley’s automation tools — such as Playout X — enable broadcasters across APAC to move away from fixed, hardware-centric architectures towards cloud-native and hybrid models capable of launching and scaling linear and FAST channels in significantly compressed time frames.

Steven Hassan, Senior Director Playout, Grass Valley, highlighted, “By automating schedule ingestion, branding, and playout control through open APIs, broadcasters can rapidly launch, replicate, and localise channels, support pop-up and event-based services, and manage multiple FAST channels from a single control layer. 

“Cloud and hybrid deployments provide the ability to scale resources dynamically, supporting rapid iteration, regional expansion, and the cost efficiency required for FAST services. Integrated asset management and workflow automation further streamline the path from content ingest to on-air delivery, reducing operational complexity while increasing agility.”

The benefits of software-defined automation extend beyond faster channel launches. Broadcasters implementing Grass Valley’s AI-enabled workflows are reporting tangible efficiency gains across both playout and MAM workflows. By reducing the number of manual touchpoints required for ingest, quality control, scheduling and playout preparation, time-to-air is significantly shortened, while operational consistency improves.

AI-assisted metadata enrichment and content analysis further enhance asset discoverability and reuse, cutting down duplication and minimising the need for end-to-end review. In playout operations, this translates to fewer on-air errors and reduced reliance on round-the-clock staffing, while in MAM workflows, smaller teams can manage larger content libraries and higher channel counts.

“Collectively, these efficiencies translate into lower operational costs, improved reliability, and the ability to scale channel operations without proportionally increasing headcount,” said Hassan.

Beyond operational efficiencies, automation is fundamentally reshaping the economics of channel launches in emerging APAC markets. By moving away from capital-intensive, hardware-centric models towards flexible, software-driven and cloud-native platforms, broadcasters can reduce upfront infrastructure costs and financial risk.

Channels that once took months to deploy can now go live in days or even hours, enabling broadcasters to test FAST and niche services, respond quickly to audience demand, and monetise content earlier in the channel lifecycle.

Crucially, this “start small and scale” approach allows a single operations team to manage an expanding portfolio of channels across multiple platforms and territories without linear increases in cost or headcount, according to Hassan.

He added, “For emerging APAC markets, where budgets, infrastructure, and audience dynamics can vary widely, this combination of lower cost, faster launch, and elastic scalability is making FAST and regional channel strategies commercially viable and sustainable.”

While automation is transforming how channels are launched and scaled, the value chain extends further upstream into content preparation and newsroom operations. Efficient playout and scalable FAST channels are only as strong as the workflows that feed them, and that is where newsroom intelligence and AI-assisted asset management play a critical role.

Dalet is addressing these challenges through its agentic AI assistant, Dalia, which automates time-intensive tasks such as asset discovery, semantic search, and content preparation. By reducing administrative burdens, journalists and editors are free to focus on creative and editorial priorities. 

“Dalia brings together powerful capabilities, such as semantic search and large language models (LLMs), to deliver deep search and AI-driven reasoning that surfaces every possible asset at a journalist’s disposal,” elaborated Matteo De Martinis, Head of Product, AI & Media Production, Dalet.

Efficiency and governance do not tell the whole story; regional context also shapes how automation is applied. While De Martinis noted that APAC broadcasters are increasingly resembling global operations with cross-border teams, integrated pipelines, and comparable KPIs, the region’s linguistic and cultural diversity introduces unique workflow challenges.

“Dalet adapts by keeping the experience consistent while removing friction where language matters most,” he said.  

Specifically, Dalia is designed to operate natively in multiple languages, allowing teams to work in their preferred language without additional customisation. AI-driven localisation is built directly into the workflow, with automated transcription, captioning, and translation occurring as part of content preparation rather than as a post-production add-on. 

“Content is thus ready for regional audiences faster and at lower cost. Ultimately, APAC broadcasters achieve the same outcomes as their global counterparts, with content delivered in their language and at scale,” said De Martinis.

Alongside efficiency and localisation, maintaining trust and editorial integrity remains paramount. Broadcasters need to ensure that AI-driven workflows enhance productivity without compromising accuracy, compliance, or audience confidence.

To this end, Dalet has embedded human oversight throughout its AI processes, ensuring that all content is reviewed and approved in line with existing organisational controls.

“With AI, we place extra emphasis on maintaining human oversight to ensure all content is accurate and approved,” said De Martinis. “Beyond human oversight, rigorous content tracking and authentication are essential. That’s why we’ve partnered with organisations like C2PA, ensuring our customers — and their consumers — can authenticate their content.

“In today’s AI media landscape, trust is one of the biggest factors to success for any organisation.”

From live production to channel launches and newsroom workflows, AI and automation are reshaping the APAC broadcast value chain. Recent developments show that intelligent automation is not just improving speed and cost-efficiency, but also enabling broadcasters to scale, innovate, and maintain trust across increasingly complex regional markets.