Digital Production Buzz adopts Simon Says AI for rapid NAB transcription
Digital Production Buzz has partnered with Simon Says AI to provide fast-turnaround transcripts for its 27 podcasts produced live at the 2019 NAB Show. This collaboration ensures that industry leaders and professionals have an accessible way to review technology news presented at the event. Simon Says will utilize its AI technology to swiftly and accurately generate transcripts within hours of each show.
Key Takeaways
- Simon Says AI will automate transcription for 27 podcast episodes over a 3.5-day production window.
- Transcripts for live interviews will be published to the show's website within hours via an interactive audio-transcript player.
- The collaboration targets accessibility for 195 countries, allowing readers to search text, notes, and product links from the trade show floor.
- Simon Says technology integrates directly with non-linear editing (NLE) systems to streamline subtitling and translation workflows.
Why It Matters
This partnership highlights the shifting baseline for trade show coverage, where immediate text-based searchability is becoming a requirement for high-volume content creators. By replacing manual logging with AI-driven turnaround, production teams can bypass the labor-intensive bottleneck that traditionally delays the distribution of long-form audio. For the broader ecosystem, this move signals the maturing of AI transcription from a back-office tool to a core component of live event publishing. Watch for whether this level of speed pushes competitors to adopt real-time AI captioning for all live audio deliverables in high-stakes B2B environments.
Additional Context
The push for automated transcription comes as the broadcast industry significantly increases its investment in artificial intelligence. According to Haivision’s 2025 Broadcast Transformation Report, a quarter of broadcasters now use AI, representing more than double the adoption rate seen 12 months prior. The report identifies automated transcription and closed captioning as one of the top three benefits AI provides to live production workflows, alongside efficiency gains and content creation. Per Reuters Institute, January 2025, back-end automation like tagging and transcription remains the highest priority for 96% of media leaders globally, outstripping direct content generation as a primary application for the technology. While Simon Says specializes in file-based transcription for post-production editing, the competitive landscape is shifting toward real-time capabilities. Platforms such as Otter.ai and Trint have expanded their offerings to include live meeting transcription and broadcast-quality tools, while newer entrants like Speakwise prioritize mobile-first recording for in-person events. Despite these challenges, Simon Says maintains a niche by integrating directly with major non-linear editors including Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. Per Forbes, December 2020, the company also introduced "Assemble," a tool allowing editors to create rough cuts by highlights and manipulating transcript text rather than scrubbing video frames. At the 2025 NAB Show, AI has expanded beyond text into camera hardware and media asset management. Per TV Technology, February 2025, companies like Sony are integrating AI-powered motion sensing and multi-person framing directly into PTZ cameras to automate live event framing. As these tools converge, the focus is shifting toward operationalizing AI to solve specific bottlenecks in the content lifecycle, such as metadata generation and real-time archival indexing, rather than merely treating the technology as an experimental workflow.
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