Here’s the thing about tech “predictions”: it’s so hard to trust them anymore.
We’ve had the Big Four, MBB, and literally anyone with an ounce of proprietary data tell us that the Metaverse was going to be our new reality, robots were going to become managers, and AI would come for our jobs.
None of that seems likely so far (sorry, Zuck). In fact, if you tried, you could make a coffee book table of tech predictions that failed fantastically.
Now, the next big claim is around “computer vision.”
In digital signage circles, everyone’s touting computer vision as the next big thing in display communication. But is there any substance to the hype, or is it just the next shiny thing CTOs will play with and get bored of?
Actually, we think there might be something to it this time.
Table of Contents
What Exactly Is Computer Vision?
Computer vision uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and neural networks to help computers understand images and videos. Computers are trained to recognize and interpret visual data. This involves capturing images, processing them, identifying key features, and understanding what they mean. For example, it helps self-driving cars recognize traffic signs, and doctors diagnose diseases from medical images.
Today, we will explore the transformative potential of computer vision in digital signage. We will also examine whether it is ready to deliver on its promises or all that remains hype. Let’s start by reviewing its real-world applications, benefits, and challenges to see if it truly is the next big thing.
Applications of Computer Vision in Digital Signage
Who could have imagined that computer vision would revolutionize the retail shopping experience? Virtual fitting rooms are now becoming a reality where one can try on clothes without stepping into a physical dressing room.
Let’s explore how integrating computer vision into digital signage significantly advances business communication with audiences. We’ll examine the key ways this technology enhances interaction and engagement.
1. Audience Analysis and Personalization
When it comes to digital signage, understanding and engaging the audience effectively can significantly enhance the impact of the displayed content. This strategic approach not only enhances the viewer’s experience but also drives better communication outcomes.
Computer vision plays a crucial role here.
Demographic Analysis
Computer vision analyzes your audience’s demographic characteristics, such as age, gender — and even their emotional state! Using this information, digital signage can display tailored content to increase engagement and effectiveness, as it is much more relevant to the consumer now.
For example, if AI-powered digital signage “sees” more female faces in a crowd, it can showcase ads or content more relevant to female audiences like a Spring Collection in a retail store.
Behavioral Insights
Like demographics, behavioral insights also play an important role in tracking how long individuals look at the screen and which parts of the content they engage with more. This audience behavior helps businesses understand the users’ preferences and helps optimize the content accordingly.
2. Interactive Experiences
Most consumers like the experience of being involved in the process, and businesses are finding unique ways to encourage customers to “do it yourself.” Regarding digital signage, companies are exploring interactive technologies to engage customers directly.
Two important ways in which computer vision can enable gesture-based interactions with digital signage are discussed below:
Gesture Recognition
Digital signage makes it both convincing and exciting for users. It allows viewers to use hand movements to navigate menus, select options, or interact with displayed content. This immersive experience works best in retail environments where customers can explore products virtually.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented reality uses computer vision to accurately predict how garments will fit and look on a person based on their physical measurements.
Consumers can stand in front of a screen that shows how different outfits will appear, eliminating the need to try on multiple items physically. This saves time and enhances the shopping experience by providing immediate visual feedback.
2. Enhanced Customer Engagement
In today’s world, business success largely depends on enhanced customer engagement. These require strategic initiatives and practices designed to improve business and customer interactions. For a business to be viable, engagements must go beyond transactions; they rely on lasting relationships that lead to higher customer retention.
Emotion Recognition
Emotional recognition has to be the new cool thing, revolutionizing how businesses understand and interact with their customers. Integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning does what even most untrained workers can’t do — analyze facial expressions, physiological signals, and voice tones to detect and interpret human emotions.
It functions in real-time to adapt to viewer engagement and ensure the content resonates with users’ moods.
Contextual Advertising
Context plays an important role in understanding the environment to deliver more relevant and impactful advertising. By understanding the environment in which users interact with content, businesses can create advertising experiences that resonate better with audiences, driving better results and forming stronger customer relationships.
3. Operational Efficiency and Security
Operational efficiency optimizes processes to maximize productivity and reduce costs to improve service quality. Similarly, an organization’s assets, operations, and data must be protected from threats. Businesses need to strike a balance between the two for sustainable growth.
Foot Traffic Analysis
Computer vision monitors foot traffic to provide data on peak timings, popular routes, and high-engagement areas. Businesses use this information to optimize the placement of their digital signage to ensure maximum impact.
Theft Prevention and Security
Computer vision enables monitoring consumer behavior to detect suspicious activities and keep security intact. This can alert security personnel and enhance security.
4. Performance Metrics and Optimization
Performance metrics are measurable values that help assess how well a business achieves its objectives. Conversely, optimization involves making the much-needed adjustments and improvements based on insights derived from the metrics. Together, these improve effectiveness, efficiency, and overall performance.
Content Effectiveness
Computer vision tracks how viewers interact with content and provides metrics on content performance. This data can be used to test advertising strategies to measure effectiveness and refine campaigns accordingly.
Real-Time Adjustments
One of the most remarkable computer vision features that users can rave about is its ability to make real-time adjustments. This capability revolutionizes various industries by enhancing accuracy, efficiency, and responsiveness in numerous applications. It allows the content to remain dynamic and ensures the signage remains relevant and engaging.
American Express ran location-specific ads on more than 100 taxis in New York. These taxis displayed ads related to the offering of American Express, whenever they passed an American Express merchant. When the taxis were in areas without American Express merchants, they displayed ads about the local area along with the American Express logo.
5. Accessibility Enhancements
The idea behind accessibility enhancements is to create an inclusive environment where individuals of all abilities can participate fully and independently. It enables advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning to provide innovative solutions that enhance the independence and quality of life for people of all abilities.
Two significant examples of this integration are directly linked to bridging the gap for everyone, allowing everyone to access information, services, and opportunities regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.
Support for the Differently-Abled
Technological advancement was supposed to make life easy for humans, and undeniably, it has succeeded. Moreover, in this global digital era, where human beings are being increasingly categorized (based on factors like physical capabilities vis-a-vis incapabilities, gender preference, and varying ideological factors), it has also succeeded in addressing the variations.
For example, recent breakthroughs in disruptive digital technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision ensure that everyone can leverage these technologies, irrespective of their limitations (like cognitive abilities) or choice of life.
Computer vision can analyze visual content and generate audio descriptions, helping individuals with visual impairments by narrating what is happening on the screen. This feature makes visual content accessible through audio, enhancing their ability to understand and interact with visual information.
Language Translation
Computer vision can detect the viewer’s preferred language and display content in that language, enhancing the inclusivity and effectiveness of digital signage in multilingual settings.
Similarly, language translation technology helps break communication barriers. It allows individuals to access and engage with content in their preferred language. This technology has proven beneficial for individuals with speech impairments and those who face cognitive challenges with certain languages.
How Far Away Are We From Computer Vision in Digital Signage?
As of 2024, the computer vision market is expanding across multiple industries and is already making strides in the digital signage industry.
It can be safely surmised that more business entities will be providing technologies like these as the backbone for digital signage in the future.
Industries like retail markets, healthcare, safety and security, and smart services will grow in capacity shortly, and these technologies will play a pivotal role.
One can completely rely on a solution like Google Translate wherever there is a language barrier. Tourists traveling to places with a different language can translate text seen through a smartphone camera into their chosen language.
With the help of generative adversarial networks (a part of computer vision), FaceApp alters faces in photos to make them look older, younger, or change gender.
SentioScope tracks soccer players during games to analyze performance. Although it is currently deployed in soccer games, its scope goes much beyond this. It can surely be utilized to monitor and analyze players’ stability and performance in other sports as well.
In agriculture, the use of drones (of which computer vision is an integral part) can help monitor crops and detect diseases. Its utility is not limited to monitoring, but it also plays a pivotal role in determining the requirement of pesticides and herbicides, which can help farmers save monetary resources and time.
In healthcare, medical imaging machines use computer vision to analyze images for disease detection, thus taking less time, thereby increasing the medical efficiency and survivability of critical patients.
In the education sector, both teachers and students can benefit from computer vision technology. It allows teachers to monitor students’ engagement better, thereby tweaking their teaching methodologies to help weak students. Besides, computer vision-based webcams are used as digital invigilators, ensuring fair examinations.
It’s Definitely Worth Talking About
For now, it seems like computer vision in digital signage is a hype train worth boarding.
We’re seeing substantial strides being made to take an impressive concept to actual commercial applications. And that’s across industries.
What is the best thing businesses can do right now? Start talking about it — from a use case, data architecture, and risk mitigation perspective.
Ultimately, the core question you want to answer is: “What problem(s) will computer vision solve for us that our existing signage solutions aren’t?” Have sit-downs with cross-functional team leads to figure out the answer before you jump into planning.
