Apple acquires AI Music, a specialist in the modification and generation of music tracks

Apple has acquired a UK-based startup called AI Music, known for its song-editing technology that can assemble a song from royalty-free music and allow you to download music or freely listen to it and share it without restrictions. The acquisition was completed in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg, unnamed sources said.

AI Music’s key strength is its "infinite music engine", which uses artificial intelligence to automatically modify songs based on certain conditions, times, and other things. In other words, it can automatically create new song variations to represent completely different music.

The now-defunct startup website talks about how artificial intelligence algorithms can change and adapt music for different use cases – be it work, fitness, leisure, etc.

How might this affect Apple users?

What makes AI Music’s music engine even more interesting is that songs can change based on user interaction - for example, if you’re exercising and listening to songs, AI Music can automatically change the tempo based on your heart rate.

“This is the idea of contextual AI. Perhaps you are listening to a song and in the morning it might be a little more acoustic. Maybe the same song when you listen to it while going to the gym will be in the style of deep-house or drum’n’bass. And in the evening it will be a little more jazzy. The song can change on its own. The genre or the key in which it is performed may change,” said Siavash Mahdavi, the company’s chief executive, in an interview with Music Ally. A more commercial application of this concept would allow marketers to dynamically change music based on the user’s mood."

Although the company’s website has now been taken down, its LinkedIn page says the following:

“AI Music allows brands, developers and sonic adventurers to access our intelligent music library. Our goal is to enable consumers to choose the music they want, easily edit it to suit their needs, or create dynamic solutions that adapt to their audience.”

The music engine can also let you choose from different variations of a song, allowing you to swipe left or right to hear the new version. Imagine being able to become a music maker even if you don’t have the ability to sing.

This could allow the iPhone maker to create soundtracks for several apps and services, including Apple Fitness+, Apple TV, or even the Apple Photos app, which uses royalty-free music to create photo slideshows.