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Will.i.am has created an AI-powered radio experience as part of a larger conversational media app, FYI. 

Why it matters: The product is the latest from the Black Eyed Peas member, who has a longtime interest in building and investing in innovative tech, including AI.

How it works: Called RAiDiO.FYI, the app offers an AI radio and stations — the latter are human-curated around topics like sports and pop culture. 

Sitting on a couch in a conference room at SiriusXM's headquarters in New York (will.i.am hosts an AI-themed SiriusXM show), will.i.am demonstrated by tapping the AI radio tab, holding down the microphone button and asking if the station can be about the Democratic National Convention.

After a 20-second pause, a British voice shared first-night highlights, including protests. Will.i.am interrupted by asking about past protests in Chicago during political rallies. After 10 seconds, it replied with context about the 1968 DNC and then said, "All right, let's switch gears and dive back into the music."

Will.i.am says FYI's AI personas are powered by "projects," where his team keeps updated information on topics and pulls from credible sources. FYI users can also build projects. The Hollywood-based company has 45 to 55 employees, depending on current needs.

Context: This is not will.i.am's first voice tech venture. We met in 2017 at Salesforce's Dreamforce, where he was promoting Omega, a voice assistant for enterprises, and had raised $117 million for his startup i.am+.

Voice tech back then "was not what it is today," he says. "Our contextual compute at the time was NLU, NLP, ML and some contextual algorithm that we had to allow you to have some version of what we're doing now, maybe two levels. So now we have an infinite floor for how wide, how deep you can go with our conversation."

Will.i.am says he left i.am+ in 2018 and isn't sure what happened to Omega. His timing may be off, given he promoted i.am+'s partnership with Dubai's Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) in early 2019. Later that year, The Verge reported on i.am+'s stalled MAF deal and late payments. His comms team later told Axios that he left in 2019.

He started FYI (Focus Your Idea) with Sunil Reddy, formerly of i.am+, in 2020 as a messaging app for large files, given the constraints of work-from-home during COVID-19, he says. The NFT boom inspired robust security across all aspects. In 2023, they began working on AI personas.

Follow the money: Will.i.am says he self-funded a seed round and a Series A involved strategics like Mercedes. 

He declined to mention more. But later Tuesday on Fox Business, he also named Marc Benioff, Time Ventures and Marcelo Claure.

The big picture: Spotify has created AI DJs, though that's more about music curation versus conversation. But FYI has stiff competition among tech giants' voice assistants as they get wiser.

OpenAI demonstrated the conversational fluency of ChatGPT-4o back in May. Apple has been working to improve Siri, and Google has Gemini.

Meta is growing "Meta AI" across its products. It created celebrity AI personas, but recently ended them due to lack of engagement. 

What's next: Will.i.am says a future business model could include "non-invasive" ads in stations where ads match personal passions — "Mercedes, not BMW; Nike, not Adidas." The app also could charge for additional features.

Fun fact: Will.i.am has invested in OpenAI, Runaway, Anthropic and Hugging Face.

will.i.am builds conversational AI radio

The artist has a history in building and investing in tech.

Will.i.am on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon wearing a bright orange sweatshirt that says FYI, a black hat and sunglasses

Will.i.am on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." Photo: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images

generative AI or genAI

<a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Will.i.am" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/04/06/smart-mask-will-i-am" data-vars-content-id="9415b9da-37e4-418b-8df2-44e4b346c940" data-vars-headline="will.i.am builds conversational AI radio" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/04/06/smart-mask-will-i-am" target="_self">Will.i.am</a> has created an AI-powered radio experience as part of a larger conversational media app, FYI. Why it matters: The product is the latest from the Black Eyed Peas member, who has a longtime interest in building and investing in innovative tech, including AI.

will.i.am builds conversational AI radio

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