How AI Made It Possible For Independent Music Labels To Surpass Major Labels 13 May 2021
NEOS-AI is pioneering the music industry by automating the release of hundreds of thousands albums, including tracklist and artwork curation.
It’s no secret that digital streaming platforms are currently dominating the music industry. But for record labels, music aggregators, and distributors alike, it can be both time consuming and expensive to handle massive album releases. Enter NEOS-AI: A unique B2B concept platform designed to revolutionize the music industry, which successfully automates the entire curation and distribution process - meaning labels and distributors can focus on signing and marketing more content, generate more revenues for their music catalogs, and ultimately increase visibility of their music titles worldwide.
“Curating music and artwork for distribution is a hassle,” says Bob Shami, CEO of NEOS-AI. “Our platform uses artificial intelligence and best-in-class machine learning algorithms to create products for digital streaming platforms. NEOS-AI takes away all the heavy lifting, ultimately reducing costs and driving efficiencies for distributors.”
NEOS-AI utilizes artificial intelligence to scan and analyze information received into a database, which assembles and organizes all of the metadata with its corresponding assets. Essentially, the tool is designed to replace human tasks such as sorting, organizing, and structuring music libraries for distribution with maximum accuracy and efficiency.
For those wondering the value of automating album distribution, consider the following statistic: RIAA’s semi-annual Music Revenues Report revealed that 80 percent of total industry revenue, or approximately $4.3 billion, is generated through digital streaming platforms. Playlists, particularly on Spotify, constitute a major stake in that game. And, with more than a billion people using audio streaming services and counting, the technology utilized by NEOS-AI is estimated to be worth more than half a billion dollars.
Platform users will be monetized via all streaming and download royalties, which are paid out quarterly. And because NEOS-AI isn’t a service, but instead a partnership between catalog owners (labels) and music distributors, users won’t be charged a fee. Individuals and artists cannot work directly with the platform, however. In order to be eligible to submit a catalog to the platform to be distributed as compilations, all partners must have at least 5,000 tracks.
How exactly does it work? The platform first analyzes a music library and sorts its metadata by genre, mood, and moments. Once NEOS-AI has learned the content, everything from tracklists to song titles and artwork are curated based on predetermined settings. The platform delivers full performance with the ability to customize and tailor settings according to clients’ needs.
“Such new revolutionizing technology has the potential to save all major companies with massive catalogs more money than they make in a year,” says Mr. Shami. “No more music curators, no more graphic designers, no more title curators, no more uploading albums - all of this is done on its own.”
NEOS-AI utilizes five different algorithms to automate the entire curation and distribution process:
- AI-Pilot: Analyzes and sorts metadata by genre, mood, and moments in order to create album tracklists.
- AI-Art: Designs artwork according to album title, using a library of more than 50 million images and artist-curated templates.
- AI-Codes: Generates ISRC and UPC codes in a split second using custom or default prefixes.
- AI-Agenda: Schedules automated tasks with the ability to work months in advance.
- AI-Release: Distributes albums via API to more than 300 digital streaming platforms worldwide.
In addition to data indexing, NEOS-AI is capable of creating curated albums in a matter of a split second. The tool is extremely customizable, with the ability to generate albums based on genre, mood, artist, tempo, and more. Utilizing user behavior analytics to determine which tracks to include on each release, the platform assigns the best choice for commercial success in music distribution.
Album artwork for these curated compilations can be designed intuitively as well. NEOS-AI has a powerful function built in, developed exclusively to generate artwork automatically according to each album’s theme. With access to a library of more than 50 million licensed images, the system is able to select a photo, font, and color scheme based on a smart-keyword driven search.
After compilations are created, all albums are submitted for digital distribution, making them available for streaming and downloading. NEOS-AI boasts a robust outreach of music marketplaces worldwide including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube.
“Let your money work for you,” says Mr. Shami. “Digital streaming platforms offer the opportunity for massive streaming revenues. Many companies focus on a handful of releases, and forget about the rest of the millions of songs in their catalogs that could be generating millions of dollars in revenue on a monthly basis. These companies can now schedule releases months in advance with a click of a button.”
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THE HEADLINES
Where’s the next wave of working-class rock stars? (see Features)
Populists vs. tech titans: The battle over AI and the future of music (see Comment)
Can TikTok revive classic songs? A statistical analysis (see Analysis)
UMG’s Michael Nash: ‘AI can be instrumental to the future of music’ (see Digital)
In the post-music streaming era, do artists and labels give too much away? (see Comment)
Songwriters ‘missing millions in royalties from more than 100,000 UK gigs’ (see News)
Merck Mercuriadis plots comeback with Hipgnosis remix (see Business)
V&A East Storehouse to open the David Bowie Centre (see News)
ESCA calls on the EU to block Universal Music’s deal to buy Downtown (see News)
Virgin Music CEOs push back against critics of Downtown Music deal (see News)
Record labels are running on empty (see Opinion)
AI music is going viral, but it’s not what fans want (see Comment)
The Velvet Sundown may be the first breakout AI band from Suno (see Digital)
Amid cuts, WMG to "continue to supercharge our capabilities in long-term artist, songwriter, and catalog development" (see Business)
WIN CEO writes to European Commission Vice-President over Universal's acquisition of Downtown (see Comment)
If Spotify truly champions discovery, it should champion fair compensation from the first stream (see Comment)
Selected Glastonbury coverage (see News, Features, Showbiz, Reviews)