That jaw-dropping photo of the crowd rushing the field to celebrate a game-winning goal. The candid image of a parent’s emotional embrace saying goodbye after move-in day. An impactful portrait of a family in need receiving the gift donors purchased for them. All of these examples have extreme visual power. They’re compelling, familiar, and have the ability to bring people into the moment for maximum emotional impact.
But the harsh truth is this: their power is also contingent on how, when and where they’re used, and that requires one thing — the ability to find them when you need them.
Having high-value keywords associated with your images so you can find exactly what you need when you need it should be automatic, not cause headaches. That’s where artificial intelligence comes in.
Whether it’s objects, text, people, brand logos or another piece of relevant metadata, PhotoShelter AI is ready to help you squeeze every last drop of relevance out of your brand’s visual assets.
Below, we’re breaking down the five key benefits of using AI to demonstrate just how big of an impact automation can have.
1) AI Saves You and Your Team Time and Energy
If time is money then think of AI as a time machine. With the power of AI behind you, you’re able to work faster and smarter because you’re replacing reliance on manual work with all the benefits of robust automatic tagging.
Whether you’re looking for something recent or one of the oldest photos in your archive, finding what you need has never been faster or easier. No more relying on a hierarchical folder structure to locate those photos when you’re on a deadline. After all, the image you’re searching for might have been mistakenly moved by a new colleague or be buried deep within a sea of other folders on a separate hard drive.
Once our algorithms tag and keyword your files, all you need to do is a simple library search and ta-da! Here’s exactly what you’re looking for — and maybe a few extra files you weren’t even aware of. Within seconds you’ve found what you need and you have choices.
PeopleID really has been a game-changer for the LPGA. At the average LPGA tournament, we have 144 players competing, so the ability to quickly identify those player images has been a huge time-saver for us. Within seconds of uploading large batches of photos, PeopleID tags them, and we are able to sort and distribute to various stakeholders and to our fans on social media.
Brianne Wigley, Senior Manager of Integrated Content for the LPGA
2) AI Increases ROI for Each Asset in Your Media Library
With opportunities like Throwback Thursday on Instagram and campaigns celebrating the growth of your organization or team since inception, a single photo’s shelf life is now limitless. (But again, you’ve got to be able to find the photo when you need it! Without useful tags, you may be scrambling to find what you need when you need it most.)
The turning point for Chick-fil-A for using PhotoShelter more effectively—especially for people who are out there doing journalism and taking pictures and writing normal captions—if you put keywords in, your organization can use them for a lot more than just the initial concept of what you shoot them for…you can move your photos beyond the initial assignment and use them for a lot more.
Don’t let a reliance on manual tagging stop you from getting more out of your photos! Using AI means divorcing yourself from needing a colleague to find the time to apply tags, enabling you to explore the potency of your photos right away.
You can even use AI data to justify sponsor relationships. Imagine being able to demonstrate value to your sponsor by showing that their branding has been featured in 10,000 of your team’s photos in the last year. Not only does AI help you find more photos instantly, but it’s also enabling brands to quantify brand exposure to key sponsors.
3) AI Creates Consistency Around Tags
The subjectivity associated with manual tagging doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you’re on a deadline and can’t find that one image you know exists it can feel like the end of the world.
If you’re always looking for photos of Bob, but your colleague tags a photo with the name “Robert” instead of “Bob,” then you won’t find every photo when you’re searching. It’s a simple difference than can slow you down dramatically.
With PhotoShelter AI capabilities, you have full control over which names (and nicknames!) are used. Plus, employing AI’s tech allows you to avoid human error issues related to misspellings, be it for important people or places to your brand, or another piece of relevant metadata.
4) AI Makes Your Media Library More Robust and Scaleable
If metadata turns your visual media library into an easily accessible arsenal of visual content, artificial intelligence puts that process into hyperdrive.
The right tags can make all the difference when you’re on a tight deadline and need to pull an image quickly. For your stakeholders, whether they’re team members from other departments or fans looking to buy images from your photo store, metadata is crucial to the search process (after all, they don’t know your library like you do). And in the long term, metadata can give your images valuable context as well as help your organization keep track of its visual history.
Machine learning removes the subjectivity we discussed earlier, meaning each file run through our algorithms has more objective meaning attached to it. Let’s say you’re a tourism board with tons of photos of hired photographers and locals. AI can help by applying tags you wouldn’t necessarily think to attribute to a single image. Now, not only do your photos have “water” applied to them, but they’ve also got synonyms like “sea” and “lagoon” associated with them too.
This, in turn, enables easier sharing and better organization so your media library can grow as your company expands, and ensures you never lose a valuable photo again.
5) AI Enables Faster Visual Storytelling and a Real-Time Workflow
Beat out the competition and become the go-to place for content. When you’re able to share photos instantly, you can meet your audience’s demand for content and capitalize on their excitement. That’s where faster visual storytelling and a real-time workflow comes in.
Over the years, countless organizations, sports teams and leading brands have told us about their workflows, sharing that with the right setup, they’re able to move assets from the camera to their social media feeds, websites, sponsors and key influencers in under 60 seconds!
With PhotoShelter AI, finding what you need becomes that much easier and faster, so you’re well on your way to sharing impactful content with your audience instantly. Any time you can have a positive impact on your audience and make life easier for your staff — it’s a win.
