Digital asset management and the AI revolution

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the hottest topic in technology. Hardly a day goes by without some corner of the internet raving about a new piece of game-changing AI. If you’re suffering from AI exhaustion (aren’t we all), then you might want to look away now.

Digital asset management (DAM) is an often overlooked aspect of marketing and design. Where and how you store and share your images is certainly less exciting than how you create them, but it is no less important.

Good digital asset management improves collaboration, ensures brand consistency, and increases the time-to-market on new campaigns. The right DAM should be at the heart of your tech stack and the right digital asset management workflows will impact every aspect of your marketing teams performance.

So, with that in mind, it’s no surprise that DAMs are also getting the AI upgrade, but how will artificial intelligence actually help your digital asset management?

Where AI’s impact is being felt the most

A lot of the AI discussion centers around how it can actually impact day-to-day efficiency. Some areas of the technology may be exciting, but they may also be a few (technological) generations away from really delivering on that early promise.

That being said, AI is already impacting our lives on a daily basis…even when we aren’t totally aware of it. You probably don’t think of your spam filter or GPS as being incredibly advanced technology at this point, but both are incorporating aspects of artificial technology to perform tasks.

We know that there is an endless supply of content talking about the benefits of ChatGPT and OpenAI, but there are a number of areas in which people are already using AI tools on a daily basis.

Microsoft Bing and Search Engines

I might have a strong sense of nostalgia when it comes to the halcyon days of Dogpile, but Google has had a stranglehold on the search engine market for quite some time. The new AI-powered Bing is one of the first times that Google has faced a serious challenge to its search dominance and the power of AI is the main reason for this threat.

Bing’s AI aims to provide more nuanced responses to search prompts, but also allotters users to essentially talk to the search engine to get better results. Bing is now seeing over 100 million daily active users and while it may still be some way behind Google’s 8.5 daily searches, it demonstrates how AI could help software providers to wrestle marketshare away from dominant legacy systems.

Google Recorder, Otter.ai, and transcription

If you’ve worked in marketing or as someone's assistant then there’s a solid chance that you spent some part of your early career transcribing meeting notes or video or audio content for record-keeping, subtitles, or SEO-friendly content. Few things are more tedious and less rewarding.

But those days may be behind us as a result of Google Recorder, Otter.ai and other automated transcription services. Using Machine Learning to provide offline transcription with total accuracy, these services provide instant transcriptions and search functions to easily find specific content that you need.

A game changer for marketing interns and assistants everywhere, its only major downside is that we are far less likely to see amusing YouTube subtitles in the future.

AI Image Generators

We can hardly talk about digital asset management without mentioning how AI is changing image generation. With services like Midjourney, users are able to create beautiful AI-generated images through a series of simple prompts.

It is genuinely mind-blowing technology that turns even the least artistically-gifted user into a virtual-Vermeer. But the ability to create new images content faster than ever before does raise one serious question? How are you going to manage all of it?

Artificial intelligence and automation are only going to make teams as efficient as their workflows. So, before you start thinking about how AI might radically improve your marketing, it’s worth making sure that you have all of the processes in place to handle that extra content.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital asset management

Having seen the ways in which AI is already being used in everyday life, it’s no surprise that digital asset management is an area that could benefit from the use artificial intelligence.

Good digital asset management is all about efficient workflows and the ability to store, edit, and share assets as easily as possible. Adding AI-powered features to a DAM promises to make it easier to handle assets, manage brand identify, and launch new campaigns.

A lot of digital asset management tools look the same. We know. It’s actually why so many companies make the mistake of relying on software that is unsuited to their needs. Whether that’s using email to store and share assets or having their images buried deep within a cloud storage service or a productivity tool like Notion.

They technically get the job done, but they don’t do it well and they create almost as many problems as they solve. Don’t believe us? Try searching through your email or cloud storage to find that digital asset that you’ll need and there’s a good chance that you’ll give up and opt to just create it again.

Research from McKinsey shows that up to 20% of an employees work week is spent looking for information and that 49% report difficulties finding the assets that they’re looking for. That wasted time has a huge impact on performance, engagement, and time-to-market.

And that’s where AI is already beginning to impact digital asset management. Automating tagging and search features can reduce that search time to practically zero and remove a lot of the frustrations associated with asset management.

These features also further strengthen the argument for centralizing all of your digital asset management on a single platform. So, if you’re still relying on email or a cloud storage provider to host your images…maybe it’s time you look into a modern DAM provider.

Raster AI

As a next-generation DAM, Raster aims to build on the core features of digital asset management and add to them by providing users with access to better tools for storing, editing, and sharing their images.

From day one, this has included AI-powered features and Raster uses artificial intelligence in the best way possible - by simplifying menial tasks and allowing users to spend more time focusing on the areas where their skills and expertise can really shine.

You’ll see the benefits of Raster AI as soon as you start using the platform. That pain point of searching for the image that you need? That gets solved through an AI-powered tagging and search system.

With Raster, our AI feature allows you to use automated and fully-customizable tags to make sure that all of your images are properly filed and stored. Raster will help you to tag your images faster than any other DAM on the market and that powerful AI feature means that you can find your images faster than ever before.

But how do you stand out in a crowd? By taking things one step further.

We’re already hard at work on the next versions of Raster and future updates will include AI-powered editing tools that will make managing your digital assets even easier.

Need to remove something from an old asset for your next campaign? Raster will do it for you. Want to change the color of something in an image? We’ve got you covered.

The AI revolution in the world of digital asset management might not appear quite as exciting or as game-changing, but it has the power to significantly improve your marketing efficiency.