FuboTV has closed its acquisition of Edisn.ai, an AI-based video recognition technology provider, and is now eying more interactive live TV features for its virtual MVPD.
The company said it plans to use Edisn.ai’s computer vision technology—which can recognize and track objects including people, logos, products and events in live video feeds—for better play-by-play identification and frame-accurate video-data synchronization. By using metadata from fuboTV’s live video feeds, Edisn.ai’s technology will improve the accuracy of fuboTV’s electronic program guide and cloud DVR by automatically detecting when a live sporting event has ended or gone into overtime.
FuboTV said the acquisition will also help it expand its ad tech capabilities to better detect ad breaks and offer targeted contextual advertising with the potential for integrated e-commerce. Finally, the company hopes to benefit from Edisn.ai’s tech synergies for its international expansion including its planned acquisition of Molotov, a live streaming TV service in France.
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“Edisn.ai’s computer vision platform unlocks many capabilities that are critical for creating a sports-first, interactive live TV experience like fuboTV,” said Mike Berkley, chief product officer at fuboTV, in a statement. “With this technology, we will be able to better detect and synchronize play-by-play data feeds with live and time shifted action - such as goals scored - on the screen. The opportunities this technology opens up for fubo - from improving our interactive features to expanding our ad tech offerings for brands - are numerous. I’m thrilled to welcome Ashok, Akshay and the Edisn.ai data science team to fuboTV.”
Edisn.ai co-founder and CEO Ashok Karanth will join fuboTV as general manager, fuboTV India, along with Edisn.ai’s team of nearly two dozen data scientists and engineers led by co-founder and CTO Akshay Chandrasekhar. Edisn.ai will continue to be based in India.