Generative AI in digital asset management

Two years ago, soon after the public release of ChatGPT, I wrote about How AI is transforming digital asset management (DAM) solutions from passive to active. The advances in AI since then have been nothing short of astonishing. In 2025, the choice is not whether to use AI in DAM, it is which game-changing capability to incorporate first.  

It took at least five years for AI image analysis for descriptive metadata to start fulfilling early promises of increased productivity. In contrast, the impact of generative AI has been almost immediate, and the rate of improvement has exceeded expectations. In particular, text-to-image generation and AI-powered searching are business-ready capabilities, if they are implemented under the appropriate governance rules. 

Text to image generation 

Despite its problems when counting fingers, AI image generation is astonishingly powerful. Just describe the scene you envision and receive a high-quality image within seconds – what you say is what you get. While many organizations are hesitant to publish AI-generated images externally, they are ideal for providing inspiration for human creativity. Using OpenText™ Experience Aviator within a creative request process enables the requestor to attach AI-generated images to a creative brief. The designer understands exactly what is expected, which reduces the number of approval cycles needed to develop the final version.  

AI-powered searching 

A common question from DAM admins is how to improve users’ ability to find the right assets, particularly after migrating poorly-tagged files from a legacy system. A new way to enhance asset discovery is retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which uses a large language model (LLM) to allow users to search using their own words, without knowledge of tagging conventions. OpenText Knowledge Discovery™ includes advanced RAG functionality that powers natural language searching in a DAM.   

Governance  

While generative AI is undeniably powerful, it isn’t without problems. Many employees are already using some form of AI in their daily tasks, but their employers want to manage the use of AI for business processes. DAM has always offered governance tools for use of assets, and that is now extended to governing the use of AI. The best DAM solutions allow admins to establish rules for the usage of AI-generated images.  

Availability  

Text-to-image generation from OpenText Experience Aviator is available in OpenText™ Digital Asset Management (previously OpenText Media Management) and OpenText™ Core DAM. AI-powered searching from OpenText Knowledge Discovery™ is available in OpenText Digital Asset Management.  Discover why OpenText was named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Intelligent Digital Asset Management 2024 Vendor Assessment.