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How Virtual Assistants Have Taken Over the Music Industry and Beyond (and Why It's OK)

YEC
POST WRITTEN BY
Anthony Katz

“Siri, where’s the best place to grab dinner nearby?”

“What’s the weather today, Siri?”

“Hey, Siri. Who won the game last night?”

It has become second nature for me to ask my iPhone questions and expect a chipper, informative response. From grabbing a bite to booking a flight, Siri has become an invaluable tool in my life — and probably yours too. Apple’s so-called “intelligent personal assistant” is the most regular interaction many people have with machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), though that is changing as the technology becomes more utilitarian, user-focused and ubiquitous.

Though she sounds more human than ever with iOS 11, in the growing niche of virtual assistants, Siri already has stiff competition. X.ai is an AI company leading the charge on email bot personal assistants. You may already be interacting with their products and not even know it; they respond to messages, manage schedules and book meetings — all with perfect punctuation and personality. Think Joan from “Mad Men” meets Scarlett Johansson in “Her.” It seems AI-driven virtual assistants may soon be the unseen overseers of offices — and lives— everywhere.

Virtual assistants are a ripple in the unstoppable wave of automation. By some estimates, half of American jobs could be replaced by robots. As a digital marketer and social media expert, I have used automation to make processes not only faster but better. From a campaign for Swizz Beatz to Lil Wayne, AI has helped me drive increased awareness, engagement and bottom-line results through near-perfect targeting and execution. By using AI-powered marketing tools, you can create novel, engaging content for your brand followers. With AI, you can curate your audiences experience with your brand in a way that is most engaging and rewarding for the consumer.

I created a customized tool for Twitter that automated certain platform features and functions to help organize data and audiences and boost engagement. Through automation, I was able to increase Swizz Beatz's followers by 10 fold from 100,000 to over a million in a matter of a year. The key? Machines never stop learning. Certain AI programs can analyze large amounts of data in a more efficient and effective way than any human. These programs provide deep insights into the consumers of either your content, giving businesses all the information they need to give their customers exactly what they need, even if they don’t know they want it.

Machines are able to process information much faster than humans, with Google being the most pedestrian example. Building on that ability, AI is able to anticipate our actions. By analyzing the path of our behaviors, it can process the data and predict what we will want and do next. The technology seemingly gets “smarter” the more information you feed it, as it can provide more refined results.

Here’s the thing: Big data is getting too…well, big for humans to handle. In order to turn the unending influx of information into insights, businesses can use AI to crunch the numbers and make it digestible. In turn, employees can go from data managers to decision makers and strategists. It’s less about robotic automation and more about human augmentation. AI’s smart analytics make us smarter.

In the deeply competitive music industry, a space that I am in, streaming already employs heavy use of data analytics to build playlists and lure users, and it consequently saw a 60 percent rise in revenue in 2016. Using AI, I helped develop an intelligent bot to sift through a global data network, similar to Google, in order to play the role of a PR personnel, booking agent, venue scheduler — empowering and augmenting artists to do this themselves and save on expenses. Using data metrics, we aggregated and input a huge amount of information into our bot. It’s like a newborn and we have taught it things. Now, it has learned how to respond and provide solutions in a fraction of a second.

To continue its education, it has learned to read activity and metrics. This will make the publicist more "human" — fast, agile and competent. To ensure it doesn’t make mistakes, we are still overseeing the robot, just like parents are there to guide us as we grow. In the process of creating it, I saw first hand how AI technology could be used to democratize marketing.

Artists can utilize the growing capabilities of AI to their advantage. Using analytical tools to monitor your social media platforms can help you find out exactly who is consuming the content you're posting so you can tailor future content to that audience.

There are also tools that monitor the music trending all over the world, creating a one-stop-shop for artists and agencies alike looking for insight on what their target audiences are listening to. Whether the audience you’re targeting is in China or America, AI programs can provide you the information needed to keep ahead of your competitors in the industry.

While many may worry that AI is stealing jobs, it has the potential to vastly improve lives. In an industry that has been dominated by the same chart-toppers for the last decade, allowing artists to both make and market their own music levels the playing field — or the play button, as it were. If AI seems too esoteric still, they can also use technologies like social media or video and streaming platforms to get discovered.

Virtual assistants are invading other industries as well. McDonald’s integration of automation technology into restaurants through its “Experience of the Future” digital kiosks and table ordering caused the company’s stocks to jump higher than ever. In turn, service is now 50 percent faster in conjunction with its app.

These are but a few examples of how AI assistants are already working in our lives in ways that we don’t see or think about. While the Cold War-esque rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who described the technology as the future of all humankind, saying, “Whoever becomes the leader in [AI] will become the ruler of the world,” does nothing to help with fear-based narratives. For the average person, these terrors are unfounded.

Machine automation is human augmentation, and the sooner we integrate AI into our business practices, the faster we will evolve our efficiencies. To quote Jeopardy legend Ken Jennings, who famously lost to IBM’s Watson, “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.”

If you’re reading this, Siri, I’m kidding. Mostly.