Hollywood is changing fast, and that change was on full display in Las Vegas this past April at the National Association of Broadcasters convention – a national “meeting of the nerds” technology show where companies show off their latest filmmaking and video production gadgets.
Michael is Senior Director of Innovation at Key Code Media, host of the 5 Things Series podcast, has spent 20 years helping his industry clients differentiate what technology actually does from what its marketing says it does. He had just returned from a four-city post-NAB roadshow when we sat down for this episode of the TV Matters Podcast to talk to us about the latest tech released at NAB and about the mood of the industry.
EP210 Michael Kammes, Senior Director of Innovation at Key Code Media – TV Matters
The Enthusiasm Gap Between the Two Halls at NAB Reveals a Shift in the Industry
The post-production floor at NAB was quieter this year than it has been in the past. Conversations that used to be about technology had shifted to who people were working for now, as companies consolidate, lay off workers and search for ways to reinvent legacy products. One hall over, the production floor felt completely different: a younger crowd, more energy, more optimism. Michael Kammes noticed the gap between those two rooms, and he shared insight about what it means. Central Hall, which covers cameras, lights, and production gear, was a different world. The median age was lower. The energy was higher. The creator economy has shifted the center of gravity at NAB, and you could feel it room to room
That split is not just an observation about attendance. It reflects something real about where investment and optimism are flowing right now, and where they are not.
The AI He Trusts, And The One He Is Hoping Slows Down
One question that followed every product conversation on the show floor was some version of: what AI have you built into your product?
During the podcast we ran a segment where I named industry buzzwords and Michael rated his enthusiasm on a scale of one to ten. He is a nine or ten on AI-powered workflows, but with a distinction that matters. The AI he is excited about is analytical: systems that look at data and do something useful with it, finding footage, generating string-outs, identifying patterns across large libraries. The AI he is more cautious about is generative. His honest take was that he is privately hoping for a Google Glass-style backlash, enough public resistance to create a pause, not because he thinks generative AI is wrong, but because the pace of change is outrunning people’s ability to adapt. “That’s my dirty secret. Even though I talk AI most of the time every day, I’m kind of hoping for a pause button.”
What the Most Interesting Product at NAB Was to Michael Kammes
The product that caught Michael’s attention most at NAB was DigitalGlue’s Creative. Space Intelligence (CSI). Beyond standard AI asset management features like facial recognition and sentiment tagging, it can produce a rough string-out from footage, then spin up AI bots representing specific audience personas to watch the edit and generate synthetic feedback. Those reactions feed back into the system to adjust the cut before any real audience sees it. “It’s AI creating content for AI bots, which I just find hysterical. But I also find it to be a really interesting way of applying AI.”
The “Specialist” Job Is Already Gone. The Working Generalist Has to Know More
I asked Michael a contrarian question: if an editor lives in Media Composer all day, every day, what is the point of keeping up with anything else? His answer showed his decades of experience in the industry. He said that the job title “compressionist,” who encoded content for DVD is gone. The “offline editor” who only cut the creative and never touched sound, graphics, or online work is gone. The industry has consistently consolidated job skills and expanded what it expects from a single person. “If you can’t augment your role to whatever that project is coming in, and you say, this is all I know, they’ll find someone who will.”
For educators, he had further candid advice. Don’t teach students to be prompt engineers; that is a placeholder job until AI understands plain language well enough to not need one. Don’t tell them to learn Python; AI will handle it. Teach the things that AI cannot replicate: critical thinking, rational judgment, and the ability to draw on experience to make decisions under pressure. Those are the skills that will still be worth paying for in the future.
The Most Candid Moment: What Happens When Even the Person Ahead of the Curve Falls Behind
At the end of the podcast, I brought up a Facebook post Michael had written about struggling to find alignment between what he is good at and what is billable in the current market. He did not shy away from the conversation.
About 15 years ago, he made a deliberate choice: build enough presence in the industry that a resume would never be necessary. His name would precede him. Then the COVID slowdown hit, and for the first time in years, he found himself submitting resumes. His point was not self-pity. It was a warning that he and others should heed: if someone who is paid to stay ahead of technology, who understands what is coming before most people do, is still feeling the pressure of an industry changing faster than he can adapt to it, what does that mean for everyone else? “We have to continually upskill, and even with me trying to upskill and still having these problems, it’s very defeating.”
When I asked what keeps him going despite all of it, his answer was simple: “I love the logic behind the creativity. I love the fact that there are people who can take ones and zeros and manipulate them into something that makes us smile, makes us cry, makes us think of other people.” He sees his role as building the stable technical foundation that makes someone else’s creative work possible. Given everything he described, that seems like a deliberate choice about where to anchor yourself when everything else is shifting.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to hear Michael Kammes’ full perspective on where post-production is heading and what it actually takes to stay relevant in a market that is not slowing down.
