The feature uses artificial intelligence technology to analyze the music users listen to, their preferences and current mood to provide a feed of similar and new songs that users can enjoy, combined with the ones they already like.
Spotify launched its AI DJ product in the United States and Canada on February 22, 2023.
Spotify
But the tool, launching in the U.S. and Canada in early 2023, goes beyond creating a personalized playlist. It also communicates with users, providing them with interesting insights and personalized feedback about the artists and genres they’re listening to between songs.
That’s where Jernigan comes in: he’s the voice of the AI DJ that can make users feel like they have their own personal DJ in their pocket.
“It’s a digitized version of me recommending all these wonderful songs to them and providing them with this context and narrative through the advent of AI,” Jernigan tells CNBC Make It.
Getting his voice heard by millions of Spotify users wasn’t new to Jernigan. He’s hosted a number of original podcasts before, including Spotify’s first morning show, “The Get Up,” which he says amassed more than 6 million listeners before it ended in April 2022.
A few months after “The Get Up” ended, Spotify’s head of personalization reached out to Jernigan about a new product his team was working on: an AI-powered DJ.
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The product originally offered a substitute voice, but the team wanted it to “sound more like X,” he explains. So they reached out to him to see if he’d be interested in becoming a voice model for the AI DJ.
“What I loved about that conversation was that it was about creating a partnership between me and Spotify and making sure the product was also about my personality, not just my voice,” Jernigan says.
Jernigan says Spotify’s head of personalization approached him to become the AI DJ’s vocal model.
Spotify
In addition to bringing his innate love of music to the product, the team also knew that Jernigan could infuse the tool with the personal knowledge and insights about the music industry he had gained from his previous roles at major music labels, including Def Jam Recordings and Republic Records.
“I had a great understanding of how to present artists to the world in a way that made them feel seen and excited and turned casual listeners into fans,” he explains. “It added a level of authenticity and credibility to the AI DJ.”
Additionally, Jernigan says the team wanted to utilize the deep understanding of the business side of the music industry he gained from earning an MBA from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and a master’s degree in music business from New York University.
“I joke that I’m one of the few people I know who uses all my degrees every day,” he says.
Spotify uses Sonantic, a dynamic AI voice-to-speech platform the company acquired in 2022, and OpenAI technologies to power its AI DJ.
In the early stages of training the product, the team took nearly 300 episodes of “The Get Up,” isolated Jernigan’s audio tracks, and fed that data to the AI DJ to help it analyze and understand his speech patterns, pitch, rhythm, and emotions.
Additionally, Jernigan kept a notepad on his phone where he listed phrases he uses in everyday conversations when discussing music.
This way, as the AI DJ learned to sound like him, it was also able to learn to mimic the way he naturally speaks and describes music, and then use that understanding to generate realistic-sounding audio outputs.
“That’s why it sounds so much like me,” he says. “Other voice models tend to train on a set of voices and then layer on top, but this one is trained entirely on me and that’s where the accuracy comes in.”
The AI DJ’s training also involves recording sessions, which Jernigan says are similar to voice acting, except he reads the lines and scripts as himself. He strives to sound as natural as possible during the recording sessions so the AI model learns to mimic the natural inflections of his voice.
Jernigan trains the AI DJ to mimic his natural speech patterns.
Spotify
“I have to be specific because we have to teach the speech model what it sounds like when I hit a period, a pause, or a comma,” he explains. “I have to make sure I hit the T’s if there’s a T at the end of a word, because if I don’t, it can cause the speech model to pronounce that word incorrectly.”
Every week, Jernigan holds a meeting with his global team of editors, music experts, and data curators to ensure the model stays up to date with current trends and music news.
For example, when rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake released several diss tracks between April 30 and May 5, Jernigan’s team worked to update the AI DJ with information about each artist’s songs and context so it could help listeners follow the fast-paced rap battle.
Now that the AI DJ is able to accurately mimic his voice, when moments like this happen, Jernigan is working with his team of editors to feed that information into the model as quickly and accurately as possible.
“These cultural music experts, who are on the ground, are able to inform the AI about what’s happening in the world,” he explains. “That helps us make the AI DJ experience more alive.”
Spotify’s AI DJ initially rolled out in the United States and Canada last February, and is now available in 68 markets worldwide, including Australia, New Zealand and select markets in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, the company says.
Jernigan says he was initially nervous about how the world would receive him and the AI DJ, but that fear disappeared once he started seeing how much Spotify users were enjoying the product.
“People have recognized me on the streets of London and Sydney, Australia,” he says. “It’s an honor for me and the love people have for me shows that they are really connecting with the human behind the AI DJ.”
Jernigan says being recognized globally as the voice of Spotify’s AI DJ has been a rewarding experience.
Spotify
And Spotify continues to develop its original AI DJ.
On July 17, the company introduced DJ Livi, a Spanish-speaking AI DJ inspired by the voice of the company’s senior music editor, Olivia Quiroz Roa.
Spotify Premium users in select markets now have the option to choose between listening to DJ Livi narrate the music in Spanish and DJ X narrating it in English.
“Launching DJ in Spanish was a natural step in the evolution of the product, and we’re excited for the world to meet Livi,” Spotify said in a blog post.
But as the product grows, Jernigan says listeners shouldn’t worry about his voice or DJ X disappearing anytime soon.
“We’re going to continue to innovate and iterate, but I think you can expect me to be the voice for a while,” he says.
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