How Will.i.am Is Trying to Reinvent Radio With AI

Will.i.am has been embracing innovative technology for years. Now he is using artificial intelligence in an effort to transform how we listen to the radio.

The musician, entrepreneur and tech investor has launched RAiDiO.FYI, a set of interactive radio stations themed around topics like sport, pop culture, and politics. Each station is fundamentally interactive: tune in and you’ll be welcomed by name by an AI host “live from the ether,” the Black Eyed Peas frontman tells TIME. Hosts talk about their given topic before playing some music. Unlike previous AI-driven musical products, such as Spotify’s AI DJ, RAiDiO.FYI permits two-way communication: At any point you can press a button to speak with the AI persona about whatever comes to mind.

The stations can be accessed on FYI—which stands for Focus Your Ideas—a communication and collaboration app created by FYI.AI, founded by will.i.am in 2020. Each station exists as a “project” within the app. All the relevant content, including the AI host’s script, music, and segments, are loaded in as a “mega prompt” from which the tool—powered by third-party large language models—can draw. AI personas also have limited web browsing capabilities and can pull information from trusted news sources.

“This is Act One”, will.i.am told TIME while demonstrating RAiDiO.FYI on Aug. 20, National Radio Day in the U.S. While most of the nine currently-available stations have been created by the FYI.AI team, “Act Two,” he says, involves partnerships with creators across the entertainment and media industries.

One such partnership has already been struck with the media platform Earn Your Leisure, to promote the organization’s upcoming “Invest Fest” conference in Atlanta. At the event, a “hyper-curated” station is intended to replace the traditional pamphlet or email that might contain all relevant conference information, like speaker profiles and the event’s lineup. Instead, will.i.am explains, the conference organizers can feed all those details—as well as further information, such as the content of speeches—to the AI station, where it can be interacted with directly.

Will.i.am envisions this idea of an interactive text-to-station applying broadly, beyond just radio and conferencing. “It could be learning for tutors and teachers. It could be books for authors. It could be podcast segments for podcasters. It can be whatever it is the owner of that project [wants] when we partner with them to create that station,” he says, emphasizing that the platform creates fresh possibilities for how people engage with content. “It's liberating for the content maker, because if you had your sponsorships and your advertiser partners, you're the one who's deciding who's on your broadcast.”

This is not will.i.am’s first foray into the world of AI. The artist, who has been using technology to make music for decades, started thinking seriously about the subject in 2004, when he was introduced to its possibilities by pioneering professor and AI expert Patrick Winston. In January, he launched a radio show on SiriusXM that he co-hosts with an AI called Qd.pi.

He also sits on the World Economic Forum’s Fourth Industrial Revolution Advisory Committee and regularly attends the organization’s annual meetings in Davos to discuss how technology shapes society. He previously served as chip manufacturer Intel’s director of creative innovation, and in 2009 launched the i.am Angel Foundation to support young people studying computer science and robotics in the Los Angeles neighborhood where he was raised.

The Black Eyed Peas’ 2010 music video for the song “Imma Be Rocking That Body” begins with a skit where will.i.am shows off futuristic technology that can replicate any artist’s voice, to his bandmates’ dismay. That technology is now possible today. FYI’s AI personas may still have the distinctive sound of an AI voice and—like most large language models—have the potential to be influenced by malicious prompting, yet they offer a glimpse into the future that is already here. And it won’t be long before it is not just the station hosts, but the music itself that is AI-generated, will.i.am says.