Businesses of all kinds have a need for high-quality photo and video content on a near-constant basis Even in a retail era where businesses and brands actively solicit user-created photos for their websites apps and social media streams there is still a need for professional photographers According to Gaetan Rougevin-Baville VP of photography and videography firm Meero in this weeks edition of PYMNTS Matchmakers the professionals just do superior work most of the time He added From things like equipment to process to presentation composition and editing when we are talking about business photographs businesses often just need to have that product that is professional-quality across the board In the olden days the way to solve that need was with a fairly large in-house photo and video department to handle the entire call for professional photographic services Obviously Rougevin-Baville noted this was only an option for the largest enterprise-level firms since it is expensive to keep a fully staffed and capable photo-video department It is also an extremely inefficient solution Most of the time this is just not their business Rougevin-Baville said This is just not what they do Outsourcing he said and bringing in professionals photographers as needed should be a superior option because there is generally speaking ample supply of qualified potential talent out there for a wide variety of B2B photographic use cases However the problem is that despite the adequate talent supply in the market there is very little transparency Businesses he noted can choose between a variety of photographers but they make that choice armed with little more information than a name and a price What equipment they use how they edit their photos how well-reviewed they are how fast they can work this is all information that is not readily available in most cases when a business is looking for photo or video vendors That is the problem Meeros platform steps in to solve offering its business customers like Airbnb and Uber Eats access to vetted and trained local photographers and videographers with an AI-enhanced product that exists as a turnkey solution for high-quality professional work A Predictable Platform For businesses using the Meero platform Rougevin-Baville noted the integration is fairly simple Small- and medium-sized businesses SMBs tend to use the app to book time and content with photographers on the platform Larger enterprises tend to integrate through the firms APIs Meero is not purely a platform business like many other Matchmakers interviewed by PYMNTS Though the platform does connect businesses to local photographers within a matter of hours in some cases it is not strictly speaking a marketplace Businesses contract directly with Meero rather than using the platform to peruse through and select a photographer Meero assigns them one through its local collection Businesses can request a specific photographer but that feature entails an extra cost On the flipside Meero photographers are employed and trained by the platform they do not book independent gigs through the company Meero contracts with clients collects payments from them then pays its photographers and videographers who have been vetted and approved through training on house style Reviews are collected from both clients and workers but though the platform uses them on the back end of assigning they are not publicly viewable That change to the classic marketplace Rougevin-Baville explained is important to the market Meero is trying to serve and the problem it was founded to solve lack of transparency Businesses do not want to become the judges of professional photography that a traditional marketplace would force them to become Instead they can contract out for access to trained on-demand and stable professionals who will deliver within the confines of a demonstrable style Its an attractive bit of consistency on its own Rougevin-Baville told PYMNTS and its only part of the Meero offering The rest includes access to the firms smart-AI technology that automates and greatly speeds along the process The AI Editor Creating professional-quality photographs isnt just about taking the photo itself Rougevin-Baville said thats only half the battle The other half is the photo editing the cropping filtering zooming and enhancing that takes the raw image and transforms it into the photograph to which a brand wants to attach its name Its a necessary process a custom process because no two brands want their materials edited in exactly the same way and it can be very time-consuming when done by hand However the process is far faster when automated through AI which can be trained to do a lot of that cropping clipping and freshening that refines the photograph and programmed to learn how to do that job better over time The AI can learn to do different things and different editing techniques for different clients Rougevin-Baville said It can learn to differentiate between client perspectives and then guide its editing around that perspective The AI does not work wholly independently a human editor is still available to make final changes and offer approval for clients But it does mean that from the photos being shot to handing clients the business options available Meero can do in a day or two what firms have traditionally waited for weeks at a time Meero is based in Paris but has recently announced a 45 million venture funding round which Rougevin-Baville says will go toward further developing the platform and pushing international expansion with specific focus on the US and Asia-Pacific regions It is also looking to expand the verticals it serves Today Meeros clients mostly hail from real estate restaurants and travel companies and the company is seeing more interest from eCommerce firms We are going everywhere Rougevin-Baville mused On a serious note he said clients everywhere across verticals are looking for photos and videos that are beautiful and will bring attention to their brand And he added we can use technology to make it easy for them to access that material for less money and at better quality than if they had done it themselves by hand in three-times the amount of time it will take us