Apple buys AI Music startup that syncs music to your heartbeat

Apple recently acquired British start-up AI Music. This company is engaged in music that adapts to your mood by measuring your heart rate. In this article iPhoned everything about the acquisition and what Apple might do with it in the future.

AI Music generates music linked to your heart rate

Apple has added another new start-up to the family. ‘AI Music’ has been working since 2016 to automatically generate dynamic royalty-free music via artificial intelligence. The most striking part of this start-up is the ‘Infinite Music Engine’. This software listens to your heartbeat and transfers it to beats per minute (BPM). The system then links the right music to your energy level or, for example, your stress level.

What is possible with this AI technology?

The start-up originally focused on two groups with this heart rate technology: marketers and athletes. The former uses this technology to link sound advertisements to your mood. As a result, an advertisement after a podcast, for example, no longer comes across as too loud. The fitness market, which already uses the heart rate monitor to exercise more consciously, is also a good match for this software. Think of an integration with apps such as Apple Fitness, which automatically links the music to your interest rate.

Hikers, for example, also benefit from this. You’ll never run out of time again if your tempo matches the music on your headphones exactly. This means you always march down the street with your own ‘groovy’ pass.

A futuristic application

‘AI Music’ is not only concerned with combining the heart rate monitor with a music tempo. The so-called ‘personalized remixing’ is also an interesting, but controversial, technology for Apple’s apps. It is supposed to generate custom music, but in reality it transforms an existing song into a different tempo or genre or completely new song. The style of the song is then automatically linked to your heart rate. A possible futuristic application is that you hear your favorite song in the morning as a quiet folk song. When you cycle back from work, the same song is in a punk mood with heavier guitars.

However, this poses many copyright problems. Moreover, the music industry is just recovering from the disastrous download era under Napster and µTorrent. The question is therefore whether musicians lend their music at all to eventually be replaced by a creative robot.

A slightly less theoretical-philosophical application of AI Music’s software is generating background music for Apple Photos slideshows. The generated music is also useful for simple games that require a different soundtrack at different times. For example, you are in hyperfocus during a solo game of Call Of Duty, or you play the same game very relaxed with your friends.

What is Apple’s next step with AI Music?

Apple will most likely integrate AI Music into Apple Music. The company more often makes acquisitions of which we only see the effect years later. We are therefore curious where we can actually find the technology. Most streaming services have been looking for the most seamless listening experience for their users for some time now and Apple seems to be taking the next big step with this. Where competitor Spotify is completely relying on algorithmic playlists, Apple Music seems to be focusing more on creating a ‘soundtrack of your life’ with this acquisition. Apple recently acquired the classical music service Primephonic.