Five seconds. That’s the usual span of silence you encounter between tracks on a streaming audio service.
That flash of time is all that seperates a bunch of random audio content from a branded, highly differentiated listening experience. It’s the deciding moment when you can lose interest and go do something else. Super Hi-Fi is using artfully calibrated, sophisticated AI to close these gaps. The approach echoes the distilled expertise of decades of broadcast radio, promising to dynamically personalize audio, but with the scale of AI.
“So far, the streaming services have virtually become commodities,” explains Super Hi-Fi founder and CEO Zack Zalon. “You can’t tell them apart. They all sound the same. AI audio techniques can change this and create long-term relationships between a service and their customers. There is a lot that can happen in the space between the songs. Today that space is a missed opportunity, and we aim to change that.”
Brands like Peloton, ad platforms like TargetSpot, media like the Associated Press, and music companies like UMG, iHeartRadio and Napster have grasped the opportunity. All have tapped Super Hi-Fi to tackle that five seconds and craft custom listening experiences on top of their existing offerings.
Super Hi-Fi’s AI can automatically deploy a range of techniques to transform silence into sonic engagement. It can be as simple as volume leveling or song-to-song transitions that keep the energy high; to a tapestry of sonic branding, interstitials, artist interviews, song/artist IDs, news, weather, and sports updates that turn once-dead air into insightful moments. These elements can be subtle or bold, yet they all work to make sonically diverse tracks into a cohesive experience.
“Our technology can calculate the ‘right’ transition between any two songs because it’s doing it in real time, even if these songs don’t seem like they’d work together at all,” notes Zalon. “We’ve found you can take, say, a hit by a 90s pop artist and make it sound great segueing into a 50s bebop track. Normally, that would be a pretty jarring experience, but because our technology knows what to do with it, it sounds amazing. The result effectively reconnects the presentation techniques of radio with the modern availability and quality of streaming, two formats that developed independently without exchanging ideas enough.”
The Super Hi-Fi team developed this tech over the course of several years, combining intensive research into AI and machine learning with a deep understanding of how radio stations and online personalities shape the listening experience and create audio brands that listeners instantly recognize. “We can create unlimited combinations and approaches built from customized components. Our system is extremely flexible and can sound radically different, but every use-case utilizes the same AI,” explains Zalon. One key aspect of this recipe: “It should sound like a human produced it and sound distinct when it comes out of the speakers.”
This is more than a cool tech trick. It adds value by differentiating services, creating brand identities, and increasing listening times. As an example, Super Hi-Fi and a commercial partner tested this approach on approximately 400K listeners and discovered that their AI song transitions alone increased listening time by 10%, a notable jump in engagement and revenue potential for thin-margin music services.
Executing this is no mean feat: Super Hi-Fi already handles more than 300 million real-time transitions a month and is prepared for far more. But building complex, large-scale tech products came second nature for the startup’s seasoned tech and product experts. The Super Hi-Fi team previously built and operated Muve Music, Cricket Mobile’s music service, which had 3.5 mil subscribers at its peak. They designed and launched CBS Radio’s consumer music streaming platform as well as AOL Radio, Yahoo Launchcast, and ran Virgin’s global music streaming platform for Sir Richard Branson. Additionally, members of the founding team had key roles at Deezer, TIDAL, Flipagram, and TikTok rounding out a diverse set of music industry experiences.
Thanks to this background, the team at Super Hi-Fi understands how to tailor the near-infinite possibilities of its tech to what services, brands, or other customers need. “Each one of our customers has used our technology in a different way,” Zalon notes, with new uses cropping up regularly, including in retail and dining environments and via branded curation applications. Yet no matter the use, they all eliminate the gaps between songs and help customers find their own distinctive sound for an enhanced, exciting listening experience.
About Super Hi-Fi
Super Hi-Fi uses artificial intelligence to improve the digital listening experience by transforming gaps between songs into relevant and personalized content. The company’s patented technology is capable of understanding the infinite nuances within music with the expertise of a human DJ to improve transitions between content and create better extensions of digital brands. The result is perfectly transitioned streams of music, podcasts, interviews, news, weather, branding, advertisements, and other audio content. Based in Los Angeles, California, Super Hi-Fi is integrated by digital brands like Universal Music Group, Associated Press, Peloton, Napster, and iHeartRadio.
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