Articles

Wistia Article

Lights, Camera, AI Action: Key Takeaways from Wistia’s 2025 ‘State of Video’ Report 

matt-garrepy

<hr /> Digital video is at the core of modern marketing – and for good reason. For the first time ever in 2022, U.S. consumers spent more time watching digital video than traditional television. According to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.statista.com/topics/1137/online-video/">industry estimates</a>, that trend persisted in 2023, with online video consumption reaching over three and a half hours a day.That’s a lot of time spent in front of phones and other devices watching cat videos (among other things). And precisely why brands are keenly interested in reaching those eyeballs.On the B2B side of the ledger, digital video plays an equally important role. People consume video far more easily than written text, and organizations are looking for ways to expand their video marketing capabilities.Historically, sound quality has been an impediment to many video experiences. Production has certainly come a long way, and the dance between video content and sound is central to delivering great experiences. Speech is still a bit of an afterthought – at least until you hear how bad it can be. It’s further complicated by low-fidelity sources like phone calls or remote locations near airports (for example), where ambient background noise can degrade vocal quality.Thankfully, audio optimization technologies are becoming more robust, and <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/wistia">Wistia</a> is embracing those capabilities. The video marketing platform just announced a partnership with <a target="_blank" href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=4261056-1&amp;h=844678777&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcast.adobe.com%2F&amp;a=Adobe+Podcast">Adobe Podcast</a> to integrate its award-winning AI-powered <a target="_blank" href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=4261056-1&amp;h=185126784&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcast.adobe.com%2Fenhance&amp;a=Enhance+Speech">Enhance Speech</a> into the Wistia video editor. In fact, Wistia is one of the first official business-to-business SaaS partners to offer Adobe Podcast's capabilities to customers.Enhance Speech is like a magic wand for sound. It automatically improves audio clarity and reduces background noise for remote interviews, presentations, and video podcasts where speech is a component. “Video is the most natural, human way to communicate online, and speech and sound are at the heart of a high-quality video,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjsavage/">Chris Savage</a>, Wistia’s CEO and co-founder. “Yet the most compelling sounds can come from the lowest-fidelity sources, like video meetings or calls. With Adobe Podcast, we've knocked down another barrier to empower creators to produce professional-quality video, which now includes studio-quality audio.”<h3 id="combining-video-innovation-with-ai-powered-speech-enhancement">Combining video innovation with AI-powered speech enhancement</h3>Wistia is a complete video marketing platform that helps teams make, market, and measure their videos and webinars – all in one place. It lets users easily create professional videos, host webinars, collect and send leads to marketing automation platforms, and more. Wistia also provides great educational resources and world-class support, two key reasons why over 425,000 marketers worldwide rely on it to drive their video strategies.With its robust video creation capabilities, Wistia can help anyone achieve professional-quality sound right from their computers. The addition of Adobe Podcast's Enhance Speech promises to deliver studio-grade audio – even from low-quality sources like a laptop microphone. One of the great things about Adobe Podcast is that it’s a fully web-based platform that uses artificial intelligence to help users record, edit, and share audio content. Its cutting-edge AI and machine learning algorithms automatically filter out background noise and adjust tone and volume levels, helping users create high-quality podcasts and voiceovers.Adobe Podcast also provides speech enhancement with advanced mic settings, so users can address problems before recording. You can also record audio in 16-bit 48k WAV, and then edit or enhance with built-in AI capabilities.From an accessibility perspective, Adobe also delivers AI-assisted transcripts on screen, making the content clearer while enabling viewers to distinguish between voices. There’s also a placeholder for adding a pre-recorded intro and outro.Adobe Podcast offers a free plan, but there's also a paid plan for additional features. Adobe also offers its Adobe Audition, a professional audio workstation for creating, mixing, and designing sound effects. <h3 id="why-wisita-and-adobe-podcast-is-a-great-match">Why Wisita and Adobe Podcast is a great match</h3>Video is vital to marketing programs – and in our <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management world</a>, having digital video with high-quality speech can be critical to web and digital experiences that rely on it.Wistia’s amplification of its speech capabilities via Adobe Podcast’s Enhance Speech AI is a gamechanger. Now, users can seamlessly improve audio clarity by refining the sound characteristics of speech and reducing background noise, allowing them to produce professional-quality videos with greater ease.The combo is also making the audio editing process less cumbersome. With the click of a button, you can effortlessly make audio that sounds like it was recorded in a professional studio. Wistia's video editor also allows users to enhance the audio of an entire project or an individual clip. There are also tangible business benefits. By automatically enhancing audio quality, users can reduce their post-production editing time, enabling creators to achieve professional results quickly and cost-effectively.Enhance Speech, powered by Adobe Podcast, is now available in beta for all paid Wistia customers. <a target="_blank" href="http://wistia.com/pricing">Visit their website</a> for more details.  <hr /> <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2025"><a href=" https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25">CMS Kickoff 2025</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">so secure your tickets today.</a>

Adobe Podcast Amplifies Wistia with AI-Powered Enhance Speech Capabilities

cms-critic-staff

<hr /> Digital accessibility continues to be an elusive problem. It really shouldn't be, but it is.In the physical realm, governments around the globe have made solid gains in regulating environments and accommodating individuals with disabilities. Buildings have ramps, signs include Braille, and public transportation is equipped for all riders. But digital experiences have struggled for a myriad of reasons, the least of which is a lack of similarly enforceable governance. While the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.w3.org/">W3C</a> provides a strong measure of industry standardization via its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">WCAG guidelines</a>, not everyone follows them. Sometimes, that results in contentious lawsuits like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boia.org/blog/the-robles-v.-dominos-settlement-and-why-it-matters">Robles v. Domino’s Pizza</a>. In the end, the pie chain lost the battle, and the optics were even worse for its business. In the U.S. public sector, there are more rigid compliance requirements like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.section508.gov/">Section 508</a>, where punitive damages have been awarded when cities or government agencies don't provide accessible experience. Unfortunately, that's just a portion of the entire addressable market, particularly when it comes to things like digital video. Until recently, adding captions and transcripts to videos was labor-intensive and even cost-prohibitive. But the rise of artificial intelligence tools has changed the game – making it easier and, in many cases, a free part of many video platforms and experiences. How has this impacted businesses? <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/wistia">Wistia</a> knows.Today, the video marketing platform unveiled its <a target="_blank" href="https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/video-marketing-statistics">“State of Video: Video Marketing Statistics for 2024”</a> report, compiling real user data on the Wistia platform and feedback from an in-depth customer survey. Wistia analyzed over 90 million videos and over 100,000 businesses on their platform between January 1st and December 31st, 2023, to build the report.While conducted annually, this year's analysis stands out as a bellwether for AI, revealing that the use of artificial intelligence to enhance video accessibility dramatically increased in 2023. The report also includes data that underscores the value of video for businesses, and that despite economic uncertainty over the past year, it remains a top priority in marketing strategies.At the end of the day, accessibility is all about inclusion. It's necessary for users, but it's also good business for brands. Wista's report puts the numbers into sharp relief, showing the positive impact of AI to automate a critical task and deliver better experiences. <h3 id="ai-is-making-video-more-inclusive-and-far-reaching-">AI is making video more inclusive and far-reaching </h3>With video usage and consumption growing, companies are focusing on increasing the accessibility of video content. AI has been a main driver in making videos more accessible with 59% more videos seeing a higher accessibility score in 2023 than in 2022. In terms of factors that enhance video accessibility in 2023, video captions saw the most significant growth, with over 254% more businesses having closed captions on their videos than in 2022. In fact, more than half of companies using AI tools say they are most useful for auto-generating captions or transcripts. The use of captions goes beyond increasing accessibility scores. According to <a target="_blank" href="https://ads.tiktok.com/business/creativecenter/quicktok/online/Power_Creative_Elements/pc/en">TikTok</a>, the presence of captions leads to a 95% jump in brand affinity, a 58% bump in recall, a 31% improvement in likability, and a 25% uplift in uniqueness, making video content more far-reaching and enhancing the overall audience experience.“It’s clear brands are experimenting with AI in video creation and optimization,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjsavage/">Chris Savage</a>, CEO and co-founder of Wistia. “Given consumers in 2023 watched more videos than ever before, video inclusiveness has emerged as a top priority for brands. Unlocking the power of AI to create greater inclusivity in digital experiences stands at the forefront of the video production industry. We expect this to continue to evolve and shape how we create video content and how people engage with digital experiences.”<h3 id="users-recognize-the-value-of-video-despite-roadblocks">Users recognize the value of video despite roadblocks</h3>According to the report, 80% of businesses said they want more video content, and 60% of businesses want to invest more money to make it. Despite economic uncertainty and limited resources throughout 2023, organizations still recognize the value of video, with only 4% reporting they’ll likely have fewer resources for video in 2024.With nearly 100% of businesses saying that video is an important part of their marketing strategy, challenges still remain to create videos. The top are time and bandwidth, with 61% of businesses saying that’s their biggest hurdle, followed by 44% of companies saying team size, resources, and technical capability. Most video creators are using simple tools accessible to anyone with a laptop, with 57% of businesses using screen and webcam recorders.<h3 id="shorter-videos-aren’t-necessarily-more-engaging-">Shorter videos aren’t necessarily more engaging </h3>Though engagement tends to drop significantly when video length goes over five minutes, Wistia's data showed that the engagement rate for videos between one and five minutes is almost the same, no matter the length. This gives brands the freedom to experiment with longer videos. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn have expanded time limits for videos beyond two minutes, providing opportunities to create longer videos while keeping engagement rates high.The Wistia report also revealed that consumers prefer instructional over promotional video content. Instructional content under five minutes had 2X the engagement of promotional content of the same length. According to TikTok, videos that show products in use see a +25% uplift in recall, +23% in ad likeability, +65% in brand affinity, and +18% in consideration. Even as instructional videos get longer, they maintain a higher level of engagement on average. As brands consider types of video content to produce or strategies for engaging with influencers, explainer videos lead to higher engagement compared to promotional brand videos. <h3 id="want-more-stats?">Want more stats?</h3>Wistia goes deep with the details in this year's report. To peruse its statistics and get a better understanding of how accessibility fits into the picture, you can download the free report from <a target="_blank" href="https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/video-marketing-statistics">the company's website</a>.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a></h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

Wistia Releases 2024 State of Video Report, Shows Surge in AI for Enhancing Video Accessibility

Explore a wide range of informative articles on Wistia, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry

News

Lights, Camera, AI Action: Key Takeaways from Wistia’s 2025 ‘State of Video’ Report

Adobe Podcast Amplifies Wistia with AI-Powered Enhance Speech Capabilities

Wistia Releases 2024 State of Video Report, Shows Surge in AI for Enhancing Video Accessibility