Generative AI could be coming to your local TV station as The Weather Company (also known as the company behind The Weather Channel) is introducing AI tools to create weather videos.
The Weather Company on Thursday announced ReelSphere, a video creation tool for broadcasters and other customers that automatically adds captions, graphics and hyperlocal weather information overlays to video weather forecasts. ReelSphere also allows users to add an AI voice that sounds like a local meteorologist. Remember those quick weather updates you often see while watching local news? ReelSphere can create all the graphics that show temperature and radar information for a specific area. Especially as people are demanding up-to-date weather information more often and on more platforms.
It uses a large language model (The Weather Company declined to say which language model) to obtain location-specific graphics and can connect to the company's weather information system, Max. Max is a platform that helps meteorologists create maps to show in front of a green screen. Importantly, even if the AI fails, the user can access her ReelSphere and edit the information.
said Joe Faibash, Head of Enterprise Media and New Verticals at The Weather Company. The Verge In interviews, the company said the scripts and information used by ReelSphere will continue to be written by humans. Their goal is to allow local weather officials to easily and quickly present real-time weather information on a variety of platforms.
“Typically, meteorologists are creating these videos all the time, and the information has to change from place to place and from time to time,” says Faibash. “There are many other platforms for sharing weather, and we hope ReelSphere can help meet the demand.”
Fiveash said ReelSphere's AI pulls weather information from The Weather Company's API and other data sources used by customers. We're still waiting for a response as to when this tool will be available, but either way, any tool that helps bring back hyperlocal news could be a good thing.
