Global media technology company Backlight is set to unveil significant advancements across its product suite at the 2025 NAB Show, focusing on AI-powered automation that promises to transform content creation workflows and enable media teams to produce and distribute content more efficiently without sacrificing quality.

Director's Cut on Automation: Iconik's new engine eliminates technical barriers for creative teams

Backlight's Iconik platform is introducing an Automation Engine that allows media professionals to build powerful workflows without requiring coding or API knowledge, bridging the gap between technical and creative teams.

• The new facial recognition feature lets users instantly find all clips featuring specific talent, dramatically reducing archive search time

• iOS app updates enable on-the-go review, approval, and media sharing directly into the Iconik ecosystem

• Native DaVinci Resolve integration streamlines the post-production process by creating a seamless bridge between media management and color grading workflows

• AWS Marketplace availability makes enterprise-level adoption easier and allows companies to use existing AWS credits toward Iconik licensing

Second Unit Efficiencies: Wildmoka's cloud innovations transform vertical and short-form content creation

Channel Studio, Wildmoka's browser-based solution for 24/7 live channel management, eliminates the need for expensive control room hardware while delivering professional-grade channel outputs.

• New vertical editing capabilities allow teams to dynamically optimize content for mobile-first platforms without compromising quality

• AI-driven automation features include speech-to-text on live ingest, automated translation, and smart verticalization with dynamic rezoning

• LLM-based automated metadata extraction speeds up the tagging process, making assets more discoverable and reusable

• SCTE marker insertion supports advanced ad management for better monetization of content

Distribution Pipeline Updates: Cross-platform integrations connect creative tools to delivery systems

Backlight is strengthening connections between its various platforms, with Zype's distribution capabilities, Celtx's scriptwriting tools, and Ftrack's production management now working together more cohesively.

• Zype's AI-powered automated transcription and subtitling improves content accessibility while enabling faster clip creation

• The new Zype Analytics 3 dashboard provides real-time insights to help content strategists optimize performance

• Celtx now integrates directly with Adobe Premiere Pro, automatically generating scene-based bins and linking assets to script content

• "Always-on" content features in Zype Apps Creator increase viewer engagement by maintaining active streams during browsing

Final Cut on Industry Impact: These integrated innovations signal a shift toward unified media workflows

As these tools mature, we're seeing the emergence of truly connected production ecosystems where the boundaries between pre-production, production, post-production and distribution are becoming increasingly fluid.

The key takeaway for production professionals is that Backlight is building a comprehensive media technology stack that addresses the entire content lifecycle. Rather than offering point solutions for individual challenges, they're creating an environment where automation and AI serve as connective tissue between traditionally siloed stages of production.

For media teams already feeling the pressure to create more content across more platforms with the same resources, these innovations could provide a meaningful efficiency boost without sacrificing creative control. The ability to automate routine tasks while preserving decision-making on creative elements represents the kind of balanced approach many production teams have been seeking.