TL;DR: POD LDN and its sister company Umbrella built PromoTool, an AI-enabled platform that automates the labour-intensive parts of promo production. The tool indexes footage by over 100 visual and audio attributes, generates structured first drafts from creative briefs, handles versioning and compliance automatically, and integrates with editors' existing NLE workflows. A sizzle reel that previously took three to four weeks can now be completed in a day or two. In this Spark Session, Adrienn Major and Attila Kristoff demo the tool live and explain how a post-production studio makes the shift from delivering project fees to licensing a product.

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SPARK SESSIONS EPISODE 2

How POD LDN turned a production problem into an AI subscription product

We are back with our second episode of Spark Sessions, Spark AI's new monthly series. The question we hear most from agencies right now is: what does good actually look like? This series is our answer to that. Each session, an agency walks us through exactly how they've embedded AI into the way they work.

Adrienn Major from POD LDN and Attila Kristoff from Umbrella joins Jules Love, co-founder of Spark AI, for a live demo of PromoTool,  the system they built to take the heavy lifting out of promo production for broadcasters and streaming platforms. 

Duration:

45 Minutes

Who its for:

 Heads of production, Post-production leads, Creative directors

What is it about:

AI Workflow Design, Promo Production, Broadcast Automation

Format:

On-Demand Video

The promo production problem

Promo production for broadcasters and streaming platforms is very labour heavy. For a single show, a team might produce dozens of versions, each rebuilt for different audiences, channels, slots and schedules. The majority of the work goes on logging shots, searching archives, checking compliance rules and rebuilding versions from scratch.

Adrienn and Attilla knew this from the inside. POD LDN had been building automation tools for clients for years. When AI came into the picture, the opportunity was specific: build a tool that understood promo production well enough to handle the operational layer, and free up the editors time for more creative judgement and ideation.

What PromoTool actually does

PromoTool works inside the editor's existing NLE – Premiere, Avid or DaVinci Resolve – so there's no new software to learn. When a project is loaded, the system breaks the footage down into shots and indexes them by more than 100 attributes: camera movements, characters, framing, dialogue, lighting. Editors can search visually or by spoken dialogue, see relevance scores, and scrub through clips before adding them to the timeline.

From there, the Auto Cut feature takes a creative brief and generates a sequenced first draft directly on the timeline. More than 200 promo format templates give editors a starting point, and the system can be trained on a broadcaster's existing archive to learn their editorial style. Versioning runs automatically, pulling times, titles and channel graphics from the broadcast schedule. Compliance checks pull rules directly from the relevant regulatory source.

For smaller channels without an in-house editor, a second module generates three complete versions automatically. The team picks the one they want, with no editing software required.

What this mean for the business

PromoTool is a subscription-based platform, which represents a significant shift for a post-production studio. Rather than charging project fees for individual deliverables, POD LDN now licenses the tool directly to broadcasters and streaming platforms.

About the speakers

Adrienn Mayor, Founder, POD LDN Adrienn founded POD LDN in 2020. POD is a London-based post-production studio working with broadcasters and streaming platforms. The company has been integrating AI into its workflows since 2022, starting with image generation and expanding into a broader automation practice.

Attila Kristoff, Production Director, Umbrella Attila is a production director at Umbrella, POD LDN's sister company and a full-service production company based in Budapest. He learned to produce promos at HBO and has since built promo teams across Moscow, Europe and Africa. PromoTool is the result of bringing that production expertise together with Umbrella's in-house development capability.

FAQs

  • Yes. PromoTool handles the operational layer: indexing footage, generating a structured first draft, sequencing clips, adding licensed music, running compliance checks and producing versions. The editor makes the creative decisions and always does the final edit.

  • Around six months. The team started in earnest in late 2024, with a group of roughly 15 people – former promo producers working alongside an in-house development team at Umbrella.

  • It depends on the complexity of the project. A sizzle reel drawing from 15 different shows and films, which might previously take three to four weeks, can now be completed in a day or two.

  • Each session is free to attend. We announce upcoming episodes on our LinkedIn and through the Spark Intelligence newsletter. Recordings are available on demand via the Spark AI website, or directly through our YouTube.

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