Groundbreaking partnership and insightful findings offer advancements in cost reduction and forecasting success for future entertainment content

StoryFit, a rapid-growth AI technology company providing machine learning and predictive audience insights for the entertainment industry, and Kouo, an emotional analytics platform connecting key feelings to consumer viewing behavior, today announced its strategic partnership and successful results from a joint research study testing the predictability of viewer reactions to scripted and produced content in notable TV shows.

"As a storyteller myself, being able to understand audience reactions by using the power of AI technology is revolutionary," said Monica Landers, CEO and founder of StoryFit. "This work with Kouo proves that the audience truly experiences what StoryFit identifies at script stage, before the film or show is ever produced."

Despite using different modalities at different stages of a content's life cycle (pre-production vs post-production), StoryFit and Kouo successfully predicted the rating of the pilot episodes of two Crime-Drama-Mystery shows – Clarice and Killing Eve –  highlighting moments of peak audience interest, while signaling potential areas of improvement. The significant overlap in StoryFit's data and Kouo's measured audience engagement levels proves to be a groundbreaking feat in the field of predictive analytics.

StoryFit's AI engine ran on publicly available pilot scripts to measure story elements from the script. Kouo ran the physiological data from participants who remotely shared their Apple Watch data from watching the finished TV episodes during a Zoom session. Both StoryFit and Kouo identified that audience responses were 50% less emotive for Clarice than Killing Eve, which is reflected in the higher outcome in both ratings and viewership performance. On comparable scenes, StoryFit and Kouo correlated on peak emotional engagement levels, underscoring StoryFit's success in identifying an audience's emotional reactions from scripts.

"Our unique partnership with StoryFit finally gives entertainment executives and creatives the opportunity to reduce costs attached to expensive changes in post-production by gaining valuable insights early in the pre-production phase," shared Elias Benussi, Co-Founder and COO at Kouo. "The results from our study with StoryFit reveal such meaningful findings; we are thrilled to continue to demonstrate these important correlations across our partnerships data set."

StoryFit's AI engine applies hundreds of proprietary models to measure character and story elements. When matched against billions of audience data points, the story intelligence platform simulates audience responses, producing powerful predictive insights for any kind of scripted content in the pre-production stage. Kouo's models run on physiological data, registering human biometric feedback during the viewing process to characterize a viewer's emotional response. All of these capabilities are vital for studios, streaming platforms, and production companies efforts in executing entertaining and successful content.