EVS “doubles down” on North America and tempers AI expectations

Left to right: Moderator Lisa Collins, Sébastien Verlaine, Serge Van Herck, Veerle De Wit , Alex Redfern and Oscar Teran

EVS has reiterated its intention to boost its presence in North America, with chief executive Serge Van Herck emphasising the importance of the US and Canada as the company seeks to capitalise on market opportunities in the region.

Speaking during an online press conference this week, Van Herck set out the company’s strategic aims while chief technology officer Alex Redfern spoke about EVS’ use and ongoing adoption of AI – but cautioned against expecting too much too soon from the technology.

Van Herck said revenue in 2024 was close to €200m and grew for the fourth year in a row, which he said was a new record for the Liege, Belgium-based business and illustrated customer confidence in EVS products around the world.

In 2025, EVS expects to achieve revenues of around €195-€200m, despite it being an uneven year without the boost in demand that comes from supporting a Summer or Winter Olympics, or a men’s FIFA World Cup or European Championship.

“In live, speed is so important that AI needs to speed up. It’s fast, but is it fast enough for live? We will get there, I am absolutely convinced. But we’re not there yet.”

To help achieve this, Van Herck spoke of EVS’ four strategic pillars, which he identified as maintaining and strengthening EVS’ position in the replay market supported by ongoing investment in AI, further growth in the company’s MediaCeption range of products, developing adjacent markets – with “banking” and “corporate” two sectors highlighted by Herck, plus “doubling down” on North America.

Van Herck said EVS would open an office in the middle of the US to complement its existing bases on the west and east coasts in Los Angeles and New York.

Earlier this month EVS appointed former Sky, ITN and EMG executive Bevan Gibson to the role of executive vice president of sales and operations for North America with the remit of leading EVS’ operations in the region.

AI expectations

EVS chief technology officer Alex Redfern spoke about the ways EVS is leveraging AI, including empowering the company’s developers to use AI as well as adding the technology to EVS products.

“What’s interesting for us is where we start to put generative AI into our products, asking ‘how can we use Gen AI for the good of our customers, for our customers benefit?’ XtraMotion being one of the main products. The Gen AI part is interesting, because we can we start to generate frames of video for super slow motion by generating video that wasn’t there before.

EVS’ XtraMotion offering, which provides super slomo, deblur and cinematic effects driven by Gen AI has been enthusiastically received by production teams as it can reduce the requirement for specialty cameras.

“The crucial thing for us, is AI often comes down to creativity versus automation and for us, we’ve always focused on the creativity aspect,” said Redfern. “That’s what’s always been the most interesting thing for us, to say ‘how can we make the image crisper?’, or ‘how can we slow it down?’ For us, it’s not necessarily about automating, it’s about putting those tools at the finger tips of operators and giving directors more choice.”

Redfern added that in the live broadcast industry, “speed is key”. He said: “Anything that can be a single button press, for example a super slow motion replay, or a shallow depth of field replay, within a couple of seconds – that’s where we really start to benefit from Gen AI.”

Redfern went on to say that while in the long term he expects more automation to result in fewer humans interacting with equipment, he underlined the importance – and speed – of operators.

“We know our operators are the ones that have eyes on the content; EVS operators see every input of every server. They’re watching it, and they are understanding what’s happening and can make split-second decisions that I’m not sure a machine can.

“There are some tasks that will naturally move towards automation and media logging, I see those moving towards AI. But no one says that AI technology is cheaper than employing people. That’s an assumption that probably hasn’t been fully proven yet.

“I also think in live, speed is so important that AI needs to speed up. It’s fast, but is it fast enough for live? As an industry, we will get there, I am absolutely convinced. But we’re not there yet.”

ESG commitment

Over the past few years EVS has made a firm commitment to its ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals. At the end of 2023, EVS set out its ESG goals and last year, the company joined the BEL ESG Index press, which is a benchmark for investors and stakeholders seeking companies that prioritise sustainability and responsible business practices.

During the press conference, Van Herck was asked what impact the new US government might have how EVS approaches ESG in the US, where some organisations have moved to accommodate the US president’s views on sustainability, diversity and inclusion.

Van Herck said: “We’ve seen some companies [in the US] changing their policies, and we’re very surprised to see that happening, but that’s the reality. Our point is clear: we are a European company, so we will continue focusing on that, and we really believe it’s part of our DNA.

“Maybe what will change is the way we communicate to the market. If we talk to European customers or to US customers, we might adapt and maybe reduce what we say about ESG a bit.

“But in essence, it is in our DNA, and it will continue to be a key focus for us to make sure that we make a better world out of this so we will absolutely keep pushing forward, but we understand that in the US we might need to be less vocal about that.”