A CEO sends a town hall presentation via video link. It’s smooth, any awkward pauses or filler words sanded away by AI detection. And if the viewers are in, say, the Tokyo office, the CEO might be speaking in effortless Japanese, her voice and cadence preserved even if her lips don’t match the words.
This vision of internal workplace communication is one area where Vimeo sees a market for generative AI video tools like voice-cloning translation, script generation, and interactive chat that draws on information from videos.
In a space rife with uncanny-valley phantasms, Vimeo’s aims around AI-powered video have so far been comparatively modest. Once a YouTube competitor, the two-decade-old platform now wants to carve out a niche as a host to enterprise videos and quality content from professional creators.
GenAI is front and center to that mission, but Vimeo’s tools focus more on automating away production and distribution tasks than whole-cloth generation, according to Vimeo CEO Philip Moyer.
“We’re not focused on the generation as much—we’re focusing on how we help the creator, maker accelerate their job,” Moyer told Tech Brew at the company’s first video AI conference in New York this week. “Our whole goal is not replacement or the generative side as much as the management, enhancement, and distribution side.”
Video AI is a somewhat crowded field these days, even in the enterprise market. Just this month, Adobe rolled out its first video generation tools. Over the summer, video AI startup Runway unveiled the latest version of its own generation model, which features more lifelike faces. And OpenAI continues to update its Sora video model.
“We would love to have every one of those AI models have a ‘Launch on Vimeo’ button,” Moyer said. “We want to be a place that holds the video, then the ability to be able to personalize it and distribute it to just the right human being at the right moment. We want to be that as well.”
Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business
Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.
Regulatory navigator: Moyer said Vimeo is also in a good position to navigate the growing number of laws around deepfakes and the provenance of AI-generated content, whether in individual US states or abroad.
“That’s one of the things that we think we have an opportunity to build that just doesn’t exist in the AI world today, in this video space, is basically kind of a regulatory environment to manage things like consent, manage things like watermarking, manage things' proof of provenance,” Moyer said.
Earlier this year, Moyer bolstered the company’s reputation on this front by refusing to allow AI companies to train on the platform’s videos without explicit consent.
Avatar future: Despite the focus on editing and distribution tools, there was also discussion of Vimeo experimenting with AI-generated avatars for business functions like sales and marketing pitches or workplace communication. Lifestyle media icon and Vimeo creator Martha Stewart keynoted the conference and discussed onstage with Moyer how she is currently exploring this idea.
“Right now, AI is a big question in my office. How can we take Martha content, which is vast—I really do have more than 44 years of content, and it’s in pretty good shape…and what do we do with that video? What do we do with that audio?” Stewart said. “How do you do that best in AI? What does my avatar look like? Is she going to be realistic, which I think she should be, of course? All those things are right on the table right now, and I’m a little nervous about it, but I’m also very enthusiastic about it.”