SoundCloud has acquired an AI firm to discover hit songs

SoundCloud has announced they’ve acquired a “cutting edge music AI company” called Musiio, so that they can better detect what’s next in music trends and talent. 

As a platform that’s free to use and subsequently hosts an unfathomable amount of music both good and bad, SoundCloud certainly needs an efficient way to sort through all of its extensive music library if they want to have any kind of successful discovery and find the wheat from within all the chaff. 

Thankfully, that’s exactly what Musiio’s technology is built to do, as they have created an AI that can “listen” to music. Thanks to being able to “listen” to more music than any human could ever hope to do, Musiio’s AI can supposedly detect characteristics and patterns in popular songs in order to predict success from lesser-known artists to increase their ‘hit-rate’ and ultimately their revenue.

Through this acquisition, SoundCloud is aiming to vastly improve its discovery experience, bringing new and exciting music to the platforms listeners while also becoming the preeminent place for artists to be discovered.

Welcome to the family @Musiio! ?? https://t.co/WXsrBATFvV

— SoundCloud (@SoundCloud) May 3, 2022

While this technology may sound incredibly useful for those who aren’t satisfied with Spotify and Apple Music’s own discovery algorithms, there’s the potential that SoundCloud’s new AI may do more harm than good for both artists and listeners, as creators may be encouraged to create incredibly formulaic songs within genres in order to appeal to the AI rather than their actual listeners who have their own unique and niche tastes.