The feature uses artificial intelligence technology to analyze the music users listen to, their preferences and their current mood to provide a stream of similar and new songs for users to enjoy, combined with those they already love.
Spotify launched its AI DJ product in the US and Canada on February 22, 2023.
Spotify
But the tool, which launches in the US and Canada in early 2023, goes beyond creating a personalized playlist. It also chats with users and gives them interesting facts and personalized commentary about artists and genres they listen to between songs.
That’s where Jernigan comes in: It’s the AI DJ’s voice that can make users feel like they have their own personal DJ in their pocket.
“It’s a digitized version of me that recommends all these wonderful songs to them and provides that context and storytelling through the advent of AI,” Jernigan tells CNBC Make It.
Having his voice heard by millions of Spotify users was nothing new for Jernigan. He previously hosted a number of original podcasts, including Spotify’s first morning show, “The Get Up,” which garnered more than 6 million listeners before ending in April 2022, he says.
A few months after “The Get Up” ended, Spotify’s head of personalization approached Jernigan about a new product their team was working on: an AI-powered DJ.
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The product originally featured a surrogate voice, but the team wanted it to “sound more like X,” he says. So, they approached him to see if he would be interested in becoming an AI DJ voice model.
“What I loved about that conversation was that it was about creating a partnership between me and Spotify and making the product about my personality, not just my voice,” Jernigan says.
Jernigan says Spotify’s head of personalization approached him about becoming a voice model for AI DJ.
Spotify
In addition to bringing his innate love of music to the product, the team also knew that Jernigan could infuse the instrument with knowledge and personal insights into the music industry that he gained from his previous positions at major music labels, including Def Jam Recordings and Republic Records.
“I had a great understanding of how to introduce artists to the world in a way that made artists feel noticed and excited and turned casual listeners into fans,” he says. “It added a level of authenticity and believability to AI DJ.”
On top of that, Jernigan says the team wanted to use the deep understanding of the business side of the music industry that he gained from earning a master’s degree in business administration 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 of their degrees every day,” he says.
Spotify uses Sonantic, a dynamic AI voice text-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, and fed that data to the AI DJ to help it analyze and understand his speech patterns, pitch, tempo and emotions.
Jernigan also kept a notepad on his phone where he listed phrases he used in everyday conversation while discussing music.
That way, when the AI DJ learns how to sound like him, it can also learn how 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 bunch of voices and then layer on top of them, but this one is completely trained on me, and that’s where the accuracy comes in.”
AI DJ training also includes recording sessions, which Jernigan says are similar to voice acting, except that it reads lines and scripts as itself. He strives to sound as natural as possible during the recording sessions so that the AI model learns how to mimic his natural vocal movements.
Jernigan trains an AI DJ to mimic his natural speech patterns.
Spotify
“I have to be precise because we have to teach the voice model what it sounds like when I hit a period, a pause, or a comma,” he says. “I have to make sure I hit the T if there’s a T at the end of a word, because if I don’t, it might train the voice model to pronounce that word wrong.”
Every week, Jernigan meets with his global team of writers, music experts and data curators to make sure the model is up to date with current trends and music news.
For example, when rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake dropped several diss tracks aimed at each other between April 30 and May 5, Jernigan’s team worked to update AI DJ with track information and context for each artist so it could help for listeners to keep up with 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 writers to get that information into the model as quickly and as accurately as possible.
“These cultural music experts with boots on the ground are able to tell AI what’s going on in the world,” he says. “This helps us make the AI DJ experience feel alive.”
Spotify’s AI DJ initially rolled out in the US 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 after he started seeing how much Spotify users liked the product.
“People recognized me on the streets in London and Sydney, Australia,” he says. “It’s been the honor of my life and the love people have for it shows me that they really connect with the person behind AI DJ.”
Jernigan says being adopted globally as the voice of Spotify’s AI DJ has been a humbling experience.
Spotify
And Spotify continues to build on its original AI DJ.
On July 17, the company unveiled DJ Livi, a Spanish-speaking AI DJ modeled after the voice of the company’s senior music editor, Olivia Quiroz Roa.
Spotify Premium users in select markets now have the option to switch between listening to DJ Livi, who provides musical commentary in Spanish, and DJ X, who does so in English.
“Launching DJ in Spanish was a natural next 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 expands, Jernigan says listeners shouldn’t worry that his voice or DJ X will disappear anytime soon.
“We’re going to keep innovating and iterating, but I think you can expect me to be the voice for quite some time,” he says.
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