George Clopp, Korbyt

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT What if you could use AI to make digital signage screen content relentlessly relevant? That's the premise and promise of what Korbyt calls Machine Learning Broadcast, new capabilities in the Dallas-based software firm's CMS platform. Using computer vision and machine learning, the idea is that if the platform can get a sense of what's making people stop and watch in a defined environment, then content can be optimized based on that interest. The system finds and schedules content to push to screens based on engagement metrics. How it all technically works is a bit over my shiny head, but I had a good chat with Korbyt CTO George Clopp about what's going on and its implications. We also get into what the future looks like for AI in digital signage. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Geroge, thank you for joining me. We've chatted in the past. For those who don't know Korbyt, can you give me a rundown of what the company's all about?  George Clopp: Hi, Dave. It's a pleasure to speak with you again. Yeah, Korbyt is at its root an employee engagement company. So we've got roots in digital signage, but our typical use case is using digital signage at corporate campuses and to communicate to employees, to increase employee engagement as well as to communicate real-time mission-critical stats as well.  Is that pretty much the core vertical that you guys chase, workplace?  George Clopp: It is. We are heavily into the workplace, meeting rooms as well. We do a lot with retail banks, a little bit into the retail space, but it's primarily corporate campuses. For those who don't know the company, it actually goes back a long way to Symon Communications days, right? You guys were doing workplace communications long before the digital signage industry discovered that.  George Clopp: Yeah, exactly right, Dave. It precedes me. I've been here for seven years now. I can't even believe it, but that's how much I enjoy this space and the industry. I enjoy the company so much, but we had Target Vision, Symon Communications, and we've just evolved. I joined at the tail end of 2016 to develop the Korbyt platform, and obviously, we have to meet the needs of the digital signage industry, but we've had a really heavy focus on employee engagement as well. Is it interesting to see all these other companies who have more general offers, find their way into the workplace because they see that as an opportune vertical?  George Clopp: Yeah, I view it as exciting. I think it's definitely a macroeconomic trend with the pandemic, post-pandemic, the modern workplace, everything is reimagining and reinventing and re-everything these days. I think it's good. It's a legitimate macro problem that everyone's looking to provide solutions to. So, I'm really excited. I love the industry myself.  In some respects, you guys have been doing back-of-house, a lot longer than most companies would have. I mean, you're not just working in the offices, you're working in production areas and so on.  George Clopp: That's correct. Heavy in manufacturing and heavy in the contact centers, anytime where you're doing mission-critical real-time data, you're connecting to an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), or yard management system, and you want to change or orchestrate the display and the surroundings based on data changing, we've got a deep background in that.  Yeah, for contact centers, if I recall, years ago pre-arrival with the company, you were doing low-resolution LED readouts that were just telling people in the contact center about the average wait time on calls and things like that.  George Clopp: Exactly, and that's matured over the years and now we're doing that on the desktop and on the mobile device as well. We still have some supply chains and some yard management systems in a warehouse, where we'll do the little blinky boards over the dock doors themselves. We rang