ZDF Studios Sets Up AI Agency

ZDF Studios has established ZDF Sparks, an agency for artificial intelligence.

ZDF Sparks will focus on realizing AI solutions for the ZDF network in the context of planning, communication and distribution together with the expert teams from ZDF, ZDF Studios and ZDF Digital, as well as external partners.

AI expert Dr. Pirita Pyykkönen-Klauck will lead the management of the company, which begins operation on February 1. Dr. Pyykkönen-Klauck has more than 25 years of experience in data science, advanced analytics, digital learning and artificial intelligence. Her professional career includes positions in research and industry in Finland, Norway, the U.K. and Germany, and she was most recently the technical director and head of AI media services at IU Group.

“AI is a topic of the future with significant strategic importance for us,” said Dr. Markus Schäfer, president and CEO of ZDF Studios. “By founding ZDF Sparks, we are responding to the importance of the topic and positioning ourselves as an AI partner and service provider throughout the ZDF network.”

Karoline Meichsner-Sertl, executive VP for ZDF Studios, added: “In Dr. Pirita Pyykkönen-Klauck, we have been able to recruit a renowned expert who also has an excellent feel for teams and talent for this important task. We are certain that she will succeed in quickly building up a very efficient team in Berlin.”

Andreas Grün, head of technology digital media at ZDF, said: “AI is a highly relevant core technology for ZDF, and we are continuing to actively drive its development for public broadcasters. As a strategic partner, ZDF Sparks will give us more scale in this task, and that is crucial.”

Dr. Pyykkönen-Klauck added: “Especially nowadays, there is hardly a more important topic for future-oriented companies than AI. In conversations with my future colleagues at ZDF Group, I have experienced an incredibly strong focus and enthusiasm for a strategic and technological AI vision. I’m really looking forward to bringing together AI talent at ZDF Sparks and working with them and our partners to turn AI technologies into socially important applications.”