Fox's new AI can predict whether you'll watch its movies

20th Century Fox has developed an AI program that can analyse movie trailers to gauge the likely makeup of its audience.

The deep learning software was developed to help Fox better market its movies to relevant audience demographics, and is apparently largely able to predict audience attendance months before release.

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While there’s always a danger of focusing too firmly on aspects of an audience’s background – recent changes to Facebook’s advertising rules being a case in point – Fox’s novel use of AI could also hugely improve the relevance of preview trailers shown in the cinema.

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The AI’s capabilities are limited, and can currently only analyse content on a visual level – looking at the level of lighting, colors, and the presence of faces or landscapes.

As the AI improves its understanding of the content of those images, however, we could envisage it becoming a crucial tool to understanding audience demographics and how best to market upcoming film releases to them.

Fox’s researchers are reportedly also looking to incorporate text features into the software – potentially in the marketing material around a trailer, or even the dialogue uttered in the preview clip.