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A First for German Radio: bigGPT launches AI DJ This Week

Launched on the 8^th August 2023 Germany has a new Radio Star as bigLayla becomes the main personality on bigGPT. the first station in Germany to feature a fully functioning AI driven radio personality

Audiotainment Südwest – the company behind one of Germany’s most successful youth stations bigFM is behind the launch of this new AI web radio “bigGPT”.  The station is available online at https://www.bigfm.de/webradio/bigGPT or on DAB+

Andy Abel, Digital Head of Audiotainment Southwest  says “We were immediately hooked. Not because synthetic moderators are combined here with a selection of music, but because RadioGPT tries to implement three things in broadcasting: Live, local, and AI-assisted”

First comments from bigFM listeners who have already heard the new synthetic presenter “It’s almost scary how good it sounds”.

“bigLayla”, as the new moderator is called, is programmed interactively, and can also answer listeners’ questions.

bigFM moderator Kristina Fixemer, who also moderates her own web streaming channel on bigGPT.de: talks about her new AI colleague. “Sometimes bigLayla still sounds a bit strict and technical, but at other times flirty and almost human”

bigFM’s Rolf Vogl adds …”It’s so exciting to hear that the AI can generate content and answers from the Internet in seconds and then, thanks to its learned character, she also talks to our listeners”.

Music on the station is also a new challenge “We only play top 40 songs on bigGPT all day long, but that sounds easier than it is. It’s not the top 40 of the usual radio hits, but based on music videos and songs that are most streamed every day on platforms including YouTube, Spotify, Shazam, TikTok etc. we balance the sources and the sequence, then AI then selects the songs that run in the bigGPT music mix.” according to music producer Lukas Spannbauer.

Alexander Heine, responsible for the development of the AI prompting, has been training both bigLayla and other male AI ‘DJs’ for weeks in a moderation camp: “our goal is, to have Layla absorb as much good, selected content and impressions as possible…..In the last weeks. She has listened to podcasts, scientists in Germany on the subject of artificial intelligence and has developed an understanding for the concerns that AI will take work away from other media professionals. Now, for the first time, she will step on the thin ice of interacting with a real audience.”

For the CEO of Audiotainment Südwest, Kai Fischer,  …  “it’s an open learning laboratory for media professionals,.. We can only judge how we use this technology for the day-to-day broadcasting of our radio stations when we understand the technology 100 percent and can use it responsibly.

Program manager Valerie Weber on the world of synthetic voices: “Our greatest challenge is to make it clear that it is not a human. As bigLayla learns almost exclusively from and through people, the AI voice sometimes very eloquently conveys the impression that it is a human being. .. We wanted to focus on maximum transparency, letting synthetic language models act reliably from their own recognizable role will be the exciting task for the future development of AI personalities.”

You can sample bigGPT and the radio stream for yourself at https://www.bigfm.de/webradio/bigGPT