Aux reveals functionality of its AI matching technology

14 March 2023 - Press release

Part funded by a £50,000 Innovate UK Next Steps Grant, phase one of the AI model will create intelligent tagging across an artists’ music project to create career-changing collaborator and industry recommendations.

 

Aux (www.aux.app), the streamlined remote-collaboration app that allows remote working musicians to backup, share, and version Ableton Live and Logic Pro projects, has launched phase one of its innovative AI technology. The tech start-up, which launched Version 1 of its desktop app in September 2022, has developed this pioneering AI technology to enable the next generation of music and content creators to further their careers in a number of areas. 

The first function launching in the multifaceted AI model is a ‘Recommendations’ feature. When an artist uploads a music project, the Aux AI will automatically tag the file with mood, genre and instrumentation. This data then allows artists to better search and filter their work and, most importantly, receive recommended connections to other users and music industry contacts.

With the help of the AI, artists will be able to easily find suitable artists to collaborate with, mastering engineers to work with or record labels to pitch music to as it syncs data between the user and the Aux Guide. This digital directory, which launched in August 2022, features 6,000 musicians and industry contacts that Aux users will receive ‘connection suggestions’ for, offering them the chance to have career-changing conversations. 

The development of the Aux AI was made possible by the Innovate UK Next Steps Grant. It gave the start-up company time to focus on profitability, its goals to improve remote collaboration, and the ability to build the technology with less financial risk. 

Founded by serial tech start-up entrepreneur, Ben Bowler, he was first recognised by Innovate UK in 2020 when he received a Young Innovators grant of £5,000. This year-long programme allowed Ben and his Aux company to develop the foundation of the AI model as well as a wider strategy for the business.

Support from a mentor called his Innovation Champion also helped Ben to sell his previous business, the live streaming service StreamOn for a seven-figure sum. A further £50,000 was awarded to Ben and his company in 2022 as a Next Steps Grant from Innovate UK following a competitive application process against 200 other Young Innovators.

The Aux company has since grown to a team of six developers, designers and content creators, and its platform now reaches over 30,000 users spanning musicians, producers and podcasters.

Over the coming year, Aux plans to double down on AI technology, applying different AI models to solve a variety of relevant artist problems as were identified in the annual Aux survey. The first of these experiments will use generative audio models to create audio samples for artists to use in their productions to be launched in beta in the spring.