Live production has always been a high-stakes world where every second counts. Directors, producers, and operators must handle production and manage multiple tools and tasks while trying to create compelling content. Every mistake, every delay and every glitch is amplified under the studio lights. That’s why the production process has to be optimized.
And for decades, this was simply the cost of doing live TV.
However, the rise of automation is changing the equation — not by removing people from the process, but by helping them focus on what really matters: storytelling.
Few people know that better than Erik Hauters, who spent more than 15 years behind the scenes as a TV director before founding Cuez, the cloud-based NRCS and automation platform. We sat down with Erik in this podcast episode to talk about the future of automation in live production, where AI can fit into this equation, and how we can empower producers, directors, and operators to deliver content with as little friction as possible.
The Shift Toward Simplicity
Automation isn’t a new concept in broadcasting. However, only recently has it started to feel human. Previously, setting up a workflow in the control room required a team of engineers and hours of technical prep and complex scripting.
Running a show meant chaos.
Editorial teams wrote scripts in Word, carried clips around on drives, and relied on separate operators for every single machine in the control room. It worked. But barely. Erik believed the complexity of this process hindered live production. So he set out to change that by designing Cuez.
Cuez wants to simplify the process and make technology feel natural again. Not bending people around technical systems, but building tools that fit the way creative teams already work.
That became crucial as broadcasters started facing the challenge of doing more with less, or more content for more platforms with fewer resources. And automation became the great equalizer, the answer everyone was looking for, allowing small teams to achieve the quality and speed once reserved for large, heavily staffed control rooms.
Automation for Smart Collaboration
Before automation, running a live show meant chaos. But modern automation is here to change that. Systems can now communicate through shared standards like API and MOS, allowing tools from different vendors to work together. Instead of asking “Can these systems talk?” teams can finally ask “What can we create together?”
Now, automation tools (including Cuez) are designed to be visual, intuitive, and more importantly, accessible not just to specialists, but to entire creative teams.
That change reflects a bigger mindset shift across the industry, i.e. creativity shouldn’t be slowed down by technology. Instead, it must be the other way around – automation should make live production faster and less complex, whether you’re running a newscast, a podcast, or a live stream.
This open, connected approach also sets the stage for something bigger: a control room that’s truly agnostic and adaptive, capable of evolving with every new workflow.
And that idea became the foundation of Cuez and its mission to make live production as easy and intuitive as possible.
No one should need to code to control a live show
Cuez built its automation tools around a simple principle: no one should need to code to control a live show.
That means that the Cuez Automator follows a no-code philosophy at its core, which makes automation accessible to editorial teams with no technical knowledge and allows them to build and adjust automation on their own. And with its new MOS-powered capabilities, Automator now connects legacy newsroom systems like ENPS or iNEWS with modern tools such as vMix, VizFlowics, Singular.live, OBS and such — the bridge between the old and the new.
Automation, done right, doesn’t remove the human: it empowers them to do more, faster. And that’s what Erik envisioned for Cuez.
AI Steps In
As AI enters the picture, it is less about replacing humans and more about empowering them. Erik calls it “a new teammate in the control room” — one that can handle routine tasks like searching for clips, checking for missing assets, or even reacting to live changes in real time.
AI can take care of the technicalities so that people can focus on what humans do best: making creative decisions and telling stories.
Cuez took part in the IBC2025 Accelerator Project ‘AI Agent Assistants for Live Production’ that explored how AI can fit into a control room in practice. This project proved that AI can become a useful teammate in the control room whose main purpose is to enable operators, producers and other team members to complete their tasks efficiently.
Erik believes that “AI won’t take over the control room, but it can make it smarter” for the production by empowering them in what they do best — create content.
That balance, between human creativity and machine precision, is what defines the next generation of live production.
The Bottom Line
Automation and AI aren’t about taking control away from humans. On the contrary, they’re about giving it back. They simplify, they accelerate, and they connect.
That idea became the foundation of Cuez and its mission to make live production as easy and intuitive as possible.
And that’s what Erik is betting on: a future where technology fades into the background, and creativity takes center stage: everything, everywhere, all at once.
Watch the full podcast on our YouTube channel.
Ecaterina Caprari
Content Marketeer
