Sweden-headquartered royalty-free soundtrack provider Epidemic Sound has unveiled its latest offering, ‘Soundmatch,’ a tool music discovery powered by artificial intelligence.
Through AI, Soundmatch analyzes the visual frames within a creator’s video and uses data insights derived from what it claims are over two billion daily views of YouTube videos featuring Epidemic Sound music. The tool then generates a curated list of tracks that complement each visual scene, eliminating the tedious process of manually searching for suitable music.
“AI is triggering a renaissance of creativity; it has the potential to increase both content creation and consumption tenfold,” said Oscar Höglund, Co-Founder and CEO at Epidemic Sound.
“Innovation and AI-powered tools will supercharge existing content creators and lower the barrier of entry for emerging creatives, likely leading to a huge surge in people producing and consuming online content.”
“Soundtrack innovation and AI tools will, before long, make it completely frictionless for creators to add music and sound effects to content through our platform or via one of our partner video editing services,”
Greg Elkehag Funk, Epidemic Sound
Soundmatch lets creators browse recommended tracks on the Epidemic Sound platform.
“Soundtrack innovation and AI tools will, before long, make it completely frictionless for creators to add music and sound effects to content through our platform or via one of our partner video editing services,” said Greg Elkehag Funk, Chief Product Officer at Epidemic Sound.
“We foresee a fully immersive creator experience that’s seamlessly integrated into their workflow to provide an intuitive connection between video and sound. This could include user interfaces that adapt to any creator request – given in any medium – to provide accurate music recommendations driven by real-world sound-to-story performance insights; or powerful tools that keep the creator in control while harnessing AI to do the tedious work in an instant. Today, we’re delighted to launch Soundmatch as the next step on this journey.”
The launch of the new tool comes as Epidemic Sound is bullish on the creator economy, estimating that it could nearly double in size by 2027. AI is poised to support this growth, resulting in a surge in demand for innovative tools to support creators, the company says.
Citing a previous blog post, Epidemic Sound said 97% of content creators recognize the potential of AI to automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks.
Funk, who joined the company in 2021 from Google, added: “Our focus is clear: we’re laser-focused on our customer needs, including making sure they have both high-quality music and the technical means to easily find and use the perfect track.”
Funk said this commitment aligns with the findings of the company’s ‘The Future of the Creator Economy Report 2023,’ which revealed that 98% of respondents see music as essential for creating engaging content.
“Our tools are powered by a team of technology and AI experts, who are also exploring new soundtracking territory to create services people never knew they needed, but then can’t live without,” continued Funk.
“AI will, for sure, play a huge part in our future offering for creators, but only when it solves a genuine challenge for them. It’s one exciting aspect of our broader innovation efforts to make the process of soundtracking content as fast and effective as possible.”
Soundmatch marks Epidemic Sound’s latest AI-powered tool after the company launched ‘Music Recommender’ and the ‘More of what you like’ features in 2020, the audio-based search tool ‘Epidemic Audio Reference (EAR)’ last year, and the recent release of an audio-visual preview tool called ‘Sync to Video,’ the rollout of an updated search engine, and the addition of 5,000 tracks tailored to customer needs.
“AI, particularly in regards to music and art, must be built responsibly with ethical considerations at the forefront. While our AI experts are right now focusing on meeting the technical needs of content creators, we also fully own the world’s largest restriction-free catalog of top-quality, stem-based tracks.”
Oscar Höglund, Epidemic Sound
“AI, particularly in regards to music and art, must be built responsibly with ethical considerations at the forefront. While our AI experts are right now focusing on meeting the technical needs of content creators, we also fully own the world’s largest restriction-free catalog of top-quality, stem-based tracks, have unparalleled data insight on how that music performs online, a wealth of human feedback from in-product experiences, and over 500 employees united around a purpose to empower artists and content creators,: said Höglund.
“Epidemic Sound is, if not the best-positioned, then one of the best-positioned to explore building a system that holistically supports artists and content creators, harnessing AI’s capabilities while keeping artistic authenticity, integrity, and fair remuneration at the core,” the CEO continued.
Since its inception in 2009, Epidemic Sound has expanded its operations to major cities worldwide, including Stockholm, New York, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Amsterdam. The company is backed by prominent investors, including EQT, Blackstone, Creandum, Atwater Capital, Alecta, AMF, and TIN Fonder.
Music Business Worldwide