The proprietary neural network used by Pond5 allows users to search using any imagery on the internet, and allows the company to offer the industry-first mobile Visual Search. Find more at NAB 2018.

Artificial Intelligence is a key theme for this year’s edition of the NAB Show, through multiple conferences and panels, but the examples of practical applications will also be present at the Las Vegas event, and the announcement, today, by Pond5 of the expansion of its its patent-pending AI-based Visual Search platform to include groundbreaking browser-focused and mobile applications, is the first note about a new development that will be one of the highlights of Pond5 booth at NAB.

The new Visual Search for video uses a proprietary neural network to power artificial intelligence-based content discovery. What this means is that users can  search by images instead of words, allowing to eliminate the difficult task of trying to put a visual concept into words. According to Pond5, Visual Search delivers instant results for licensable media with a similar look to any file a customer chooses.

“Our team used state-of-the-art deep-learning techniques to build and train a neural network that allows users to search Pond5 using visual assets that inspire them,” explained Lawrence Lazare, Sr. Director, Product Management at Pond5. “By adding AI-based search into our industry-leading search experience, we also vastly reduced the amount of time it takes to find the perfect video clip, photo, or illustration.”

With the continued evolution of the internet into a primarily visual medium, video has continued to gain prominence at an exponential pace, making Pond5’s introduction of Visual Search for video a game-changing development. On the site, customers can use the feature, which recognizes patterns in imagery, either by scrolling over a search result in the Pond5 marketplace or uploading a file from their own computer.

Further utilizing the neural network-based technology, the first of the new Visual Search applications is a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari that lets users search using any video or image they find on the web. With the extensions, customers can select any visual web result and use it to find similar video and image results on Pond5. The extensions even include the ability to erase parts of the selected image before searching, for more refined results.

Early adopters of Pond5 Visual Search have already found it to be extremely liberating. “Pond5’s new Visual Search features make it much easier — and faster — to pinpoint clips that are exactly what we need,” said Michele Kurtz, Vice President of Development at Half Yard Productions.

The second new application of the technology is an industry-first mobile web Visual Search. Giving users the ability to search for media using the camera on their mobile device or media uploaded from their camera roll, it’s an ideal solution for location scouters, traveling producers, and creators in search of ideas. By utilizing this on-the-go functionality, customers can capture imagery any time that inspiration strikes and immediately find similar results on Pond5.

“Visual Search is absolutely the future,” said Pond5 CEO Jason Teichman. “It’s a new yet familiar way to find exactly what you’re envisioning for your project. And inspiration can strike at any time, so it’s important that you’re not limited to a single method of searching. By expanding on our custom neural-network engine, Pond5 can now always give you a way to find what you’re looking for, regardless of whether you’re on the site, browsing the web, or walking down the street. It’s just the latest example of our commitment to making content discovery as easy and intuitive as possible, and to constantly innovating on behalf of both our artists and our customers.”

Follow the link to learn more about Pond5 Visual Search and how each of the new features works, as well as to download the browser extensions. Professionals attending the NAB Show can book a private meeting and demonstration with the Pond5 sales team at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas.