AWS at NAB 2025

I just returned from NAB 2025, and like every year there is much more than can be seen even in a few days. As an AWS Consulting Partner specializing in GenAI and media & entertainment, my bias was seeing what was up at the AWS booth (where I spent most of my time), but I also looked around to find out what the state of the art was in AI powered dubbing, and stopped by some of our customer booths.  Let's dig in!

AWS at NAB 2025

AWS is far and away the biggest and most prolific cloud provider in the media & entertainment space. As such, they took up huge positions around the West Hall, being the first you see when you walk in and having several additional spots around the hall including the Amazon Nova Racing Experience (which they incorporated into demos), the AWS Theater, as well as their mega booth. At the booth itself, there were a number of cool demos:

• GenAI Powered Virtual person
• Live Cloud Production for Sports
• Amazon Nova Sonic
• Video Semantic Search
• Sketch to 3D model using GenAI

GenAI-powered Virtual Person

By far the most eye catching (and weirdest) part of the demo was a collaboration with AWS Partner Proto, AWS showcased a sort-of-lifelike virtual person that could interact live with fans. The virtual person (apparently the avatar of a real person) was full sized and couldn't see the people walking by. "She" could hear people only if they spoke into a microphone, and her responses were then processed in real-time based using some sort of GenAI system in the background. While there was some RAG data, it wasn't up-to-date on the latest information at NAB (booth location, etc.) as you can see in my interaction below:

You can read more about the tech specs behind the scenes here: https://aws.amazon.com/media/nab25-demos/generative-ai-enabled-conversation-with-digital-double/ 

Live Cloud Production for Sports

One of the standout exhibits was AWS's live cloud production for sports. They featured a fully functional production control room that provided an inside look at professional live cloud production workflows. This setup integrated AWS services with industry-leading partner solutions, demonstrating the future of live sports broadcasting

Video Semantic Search

The human experience of semantic search is quite simple: type what you want to find. For example, you could ask for:

• A couple having a romantic get away
• The craziest chase scene in the movie
• A beautiful view

Behind the scenes, there's quite a lot that is happening, as shown in the following architectural diagram:

Amazon Nova Sonic

With a release date timed for NAB, Amazon Nova Sonic (does this make you think of a hedgehog too?) is a product that uses GenAI to handle jobs that used to require multiple AWS deep learning services. Sonic can be used in a wide range of applications, including customer support call automation, outbound marketing, voice-enabled personal assistants and agents, and interactive education and language learning.

Sketch to 3D model using GenAI

One of the things that landed closest to home for me, was a demo of how to turn a sketch into a 3d model in just a few minutes. You can see a quick demo in the video below:

You can read more about the mechanics and see the full demo here: https://aws.amazon.com/media/nab25-demos/ai-powered-immersive-content-creation/

The reason this last example is so personal, is that my daughter recently completed her college education in animation, only to learn that the industry is rapidly being disrupted by AI. I've written about this and my thoughts about our future in my newsletter.

This was far from the only thing being demoed at NAB2025 by was, and you can find a full list of all of their demos here: https://aws.amazon.com/media/nab25-demos/

That's all for now! Signing off with the requisite NAB+AWS selfie!