Given the big stakes at play, when enterprise leaders discuss AI, individuals hear.
In Could, Dario Amodei, CEO of AI agency Anthropic — who stands to personally profit from firms’ widespread adoption of his expertise — gained widespread consideration after he predicted that AI will wipe out half of all entry-level jobs inside 5 years. And in music, Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer, in an annual presentation to investors, stated the corporate is “going to do offers for brand new music AI merchandise this yr” and that it has “actively engaged with greater than 800 firms” on varied AI-related initiatives.
Maybe most notable, at the very least on the music entrance, are the feedback made about AI in varied interviews given by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek in recent times. In them, he’s offered insights into how Spotify, essentially the most useful and necessary music platform on this planet, approaches the expertise. Ek’s feedback carry weight: Whereas generative AI platforms comparable to Suno and Udio have stirred the best quantity of worry over AI’s capability to undermine human creativity, the most important music platforms will play an enormous position in how each creators and listeners have interaction with it.
Understanding Spotify’s method to AI doesn’t all the time require studying tea leaves. A few of its merchandise that use AI are out within the open. For instance, in 2023, the corporate launched two main merchandise that make the most of the expertise: a personalized AI-powered DJ and a voice translation tool for podcasters that may translate recordings into different languages.
Nonetheless, provided that the corporate’s attitudes and approaches to AI will have an effect on Spotify’s 678 million month-to-month customers and hundreds of thousands of creators, it’s price inspecting Ek’s statements to see how Spotify intends to include AI, embrace alternatives and deal with issues. To that finish, this creator examined 10 podcast interviews, quite a few on-line articles and a 2024 open letter Ek penned with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to get a greater sense of how he views the expertise.
The one side about AI that Ek has talked about most frequently is its capability to assist Spotify ship to listeners the proper audio — whether or not it’s music, a podcast or an audiobook — at a selected second. He has described a mismatch between provide and demand, and the way utilizing new improvements will help higher join listeners and creators. Proper now, Spotify customers can search and discover what they need 30% to 40% of the time, Ek instructed the New York Post in Could, including that he believes AI can enhance that quantity. “So, we nonetheless have some methods to go earlier than we’re at that time the place we will simply serve you that magical factor that you simply didn’t even know that you simply preferred higher than you are able to do your self,” he defined.
Most germane to individuals studying this text, the interviews present that Ek has constantly voiced a respect for creators and a perception that AI ought to improve creativity, not exchange it. That won’t reassure songwriters who’re receiving fewer royalties after Spotify adopted a decrease royalty price afforded to bundles within the U.S. Ek’s acknowledged respect for artists additionally contrasts with the criticism Spotify has attracted — as detailed within the guide Temper Machine and information studies — for paying flat charges for music tagged with pretend artist names and inserted into playlists with the intention to scale back its royalty obligations. (Spotify denied claims that it’s created pretend artists.) However in his public feedback, Ek’s assist for creators doesn’t waver, and there’s no indication that Spotify will comply with within the footsteps of Tencent Music Leisure, which provides music-making generative AI instruments — it incorporates Chinese language AI firm DeepSeek’s massive language mannequin — and permits customers to add the ensuing songs to its QQ Music platform.
However AI can assist the inventive course of with out stepping on creators’ rights, and Ek has talked with pleasure about how AI instruments will help decrease limitations to entry and assist musicians convey their visions to life. Though making music now not requires studying and mastering an instrument, there’s nonetheless some technical know-how concerned in producing music on digital audio workstations (DAWs). AI instruments can scale back the complexity of DAWs and enhance creators’ productiveness. “We’re most probably going to have one other order of magnitude of simplicity,” Ek stated on the Acquired podcast in 2023.
On the similar time, Ek admits there are some horrifying potential functions for AI. In 2023, he told CBS Morning that AI could make experiences in each subject “higher and simpler,” whereas admitting that the notion that AI will likely be smarter than any human is “daunting to consider what the results is perhaps for humanity.” And regardless of the potential for AI to unleash untold quantities of creativity, Ek admits that the last word end result for creators is tough to determine. “We would like actual people to make it as artists and creators, however what’s creativity sooner or later with AI? I don’t know,” he stated in Could at an open home at Spotify’s Stockholm headquarters, according to AFP.
Simply as lawmakers and music business teams are pushing for laws to guard artists’ names and likenesses, Ek has revealed concern about AI’s capability to copy a musician’s voice. “Think about if somebody walked round claiming to be you, saying issues that you simply’ve by no means stated,” he told Jules Terpak in 2024. Spotify wouldn’t permit it on the platform with out the artist’s permission, Ek stated, citing Grimes — who launched a project in 2023 permitting followers to copy her voice to make use of of their songs and evenly cut up the royalties — for instance of permissible use of an AI-generated title and likeness. “After all, we are going to let her experiment, as a result of she’s effective with it,” Ek stated.
Now that Spotify is within the audiobook enterprise, the corporate’s use of AI will affect a wider swath of creators than simply musicians. As Ek instructed The New York Submit, Spotify “can play a job” in getting extra books transformed into audiobooks utilizing AI — particularly smaller authors who can’t afford the expense of hiring somebody to learn them. Such reasonably priced text-to-voice instruments exist already and are provided to authors who would in any other case be locked out of the audiobook market. It is sensible: Simply as Spotify was constructed on offering listeners the lengthy tail of music, it doesn’t need its audiobook choice to be restricted to main titles. If Spotify builds or buys such a instrument, it may vastly enhance the variety of audiobooks obtainable to its listeners.
Within the interview with CBS Morning, Ek quoted Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates to clarify how he finds inspiration in innovation. “He says that the longer term is already right here,” Ek stated through the 40-minute discuss. “It’s simply not evenly distributed.” What Ek means is that he seems to be around the globe, sees what others are doing with expertise after which considers how he can convey these improvements to a wider viewers. And because the CEO of the world’s largest and most influential audio streaming service, how he chooses to method AI will go a good distance in figuring out — for higher or worse — how hundreds of thousands of individuals create, eat and revenue from music, podcasts and audiobooks sooner or later.