Spotify CEO says AI progress is both ‘really cool and scary,’ may pose risk to creative industry

In its first-quarter earnings name, streaming music service Spotify talked in additional element about how AI advances are impacting its enterprise. On the constructive facet, the corporate supplied an replace on the person adoption of its new AI DJ characteristic, which presents personalised music alternatives launched by a realistic-sounding DJ voice powered by AI. However different AI advances have the potential to trigger hurt — together with the usage of AI to create music that clones the voices of current artists with out their consent, resulting in copyright issues and additional problems for streamers like itself.

The latter problem just lately made headlines when a track that used synthetic intelligence to clone the voices of Drake and The Weeknd was uploaded to numerous streaming companies, together with Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube, and Deezer.

Spotify and others rapidly took the monitor down however confronted criticism from publishers like Common Music Group, which requested which “facet of historical past” did “stakeholders within the music ecosystem wish to be on: the facet of artists, followers, and human inventive expression, or the facet of deep fakes, fraud, and denying artists their due compensation?”

On the Q1 2023 investor name, Spotify was requested the way it supposed to strategy this type of drawback going ahead.

In response, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek known as the problem complicated and fast-moving and didn’t appear to have a proposed answer presently.

“First off, let’s acknowledge that that is an extremely fast-moving and growing house. I don’t assume in my historical past with know-how I’ve ever seen something shifting as quick as the event of AI presently is in the intervening time,” he mentioned.

Ek famous that Spotify needed to steadiness two aims, together with being a platform for permitting innovation round inventive works, and one that should shield current creators and artists. Each roles it takes very severely, he mentioned.

“We’re in fixed dialogue with the business about these items. And it’s essential to state that there’s all the things from…faux tracks from artists which falls in a single bucket to…simply augmenting utilizing AI to permit for expression, which in all probability falls within the extra lenient and simpler buckets,” Ek continued.

“These are very, very complicated points that don’t have a single straight reply…However we’re in fixed dialogue with our companions and creators and artists and wish to strike a steadiness between permitting innovation and, in fact, defending artists,” he added.

When later pushed as to what materials affect AI developments may have on the enterprise, Ek admitted that the progress in AI is each “actually cool and scary” and that there’s a danger to the broader ecosystem.

“I feel the entire business is making an attempt to determine that out and making an attempt to determine [AI] coaching…I might positively put that on the danger account as a result of there’s lots of uncertainty, I feel, for the whole ecosystem,” he mentioned.

In the meantime, the corporate is benefiting from the usage of AI in different areas, Ek pressured.

For instance, Spotify’s just lately launched AI DJ characteristic has been gaining traction.

The characteristic remains to be in its early days, having solely begun rolling out to Spotify customers forward of its product launch occasion Stream On in March, the place the corporate additionally launched a revamped, video-focused person interface, powered by algorithms and machine studying, and new instruments for artists and podcasters, amongst different issues.

Although restricted to the North American market and nonetheless in beta, the AI DJ is now reaching “hundreds of thousands” of energetic customers each week, Spotify reported, representing greater than 25% of person consumption on days that they use the DJ characteristic.

That’s strong traction for the nonetheless experimental new characteristic and in addition a constructive indication of the good thing about Spotify’s funding in AI applied sciences.

The CEO additionally spoke to AI’s potential to assist individuals create music with out having to grasp the best way to use sophisticated music manufacturing instruments. He envisioned artists instructing the AI to make a track sound “a little bit extra upbeat,” simply utilizing a voice command, for instance, or telling the AI to “add some congas to the combo.”

“That has the possibility I feel, to meaningfully increase that inventive journey that many artists do,” he famous.

Ek additionally felt it was essential to emphasize the distinction between one thing like an AI-powered characteristic just like the DJ and the issues round AI in creating faux tracks.

“I do assume it’s essential to type of separate AI DJ from the AI dialog. So AI DJ, in and of itself — I feel we’ve had nothing however constructive reactions from throughout the business. I feel the AI pushback from the copyright business or labels and media firms…it’s actually round actually essential subjects and points like identify and likeness; what’s an precise copyright; who owns the best to one thing the place you add one thing and declare it to be Drake, and it’s actually not; and so forth. And people are legit issues,” Ek mentioned.

“And clearly, these are issues that we’re working with our companions on making an attempt to ascertain a place the place we each enable innovation however, on the identical time, shield the entire creators that we have now on our platform,” Ek mentioned.

The corporate reported its Q1 income was up 14% year-over-year to €3.04 billion, and its advert income was up 17% year-over-year to €329 million. Spotify hit a brand new milestone with the information it has reached 500 million customers, however its premium subscriber portion fell to a ratio of 40% paid-to-free listeners, with 210 million premium subscribers and 317 million on the ad-supported plan.