As audio networks are racing to become a beacon of trust in the age of Artificial Intelligence, the Audacy Research, Insights, and Technology teams are working together to navigate the company’s future. Their Chief Technology Officer, Sarah Foss, and Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Insights, Idil Cakim, spoke with Barrett Media on their latest study on AI and how they are using the new technology to allow more creativity in their network.
Krystina Carroll: What are some trends that you’re seeing?
Idil Cakim: Well, the trends that we uncovered in our innovation tracker were very interesting. We looked into how people looked into, looked at and thought of AI, everyday people. So, we interviewed more than a thousand consumers across the nation and asked them whether they thought favorably about AI and how they thought the future looked. Across all groups: men, women, age groups, technology forward people, people who were open to sharing their information with brands, people who were interested in sustainability in any consumer group.
They all said, ‘I think AI is going to do great things for society, but I’m a little bit nervous about some of the images that you might see that are not real.’ So, their worry was around trust. When we asked them whether they trusted a human voice or a synthetic voice, regardless of their favorability towards technology, whether they were tech forward or a little tech shy, privacy concerned or completely open. They all said, ‘I trust human voice more’ and there was a significant shift actually towards human voice, which was really interesting, reassuring, and also in line with what we see in other lines in other studies. People want authenticity. Trust is quintessential for any transaction.
KC: Do you think AI is able to skew these data points yet?
IC: Research is not done with AI. We have a system that takes the busy work off our shoulders, but also gets our sellers quick answers at their fingertips. So, we prompt some of their key questions right away using this automation so we can actually have time for human connection and one on one consulting internally. Our job is to answer ad sales questions, and we can go sometimes quick, or we can go deep. Some answers are needed in an hour. Some answers can wait for four days.
But we would like to have information at our fingertips to feed to our sellers quickly so that we can do the surveys that I’m talking about so that we can be consultative. We always call back our sellers and have that human connection when we work with them to manage our time and efficiency. We use a system that automates our outputs. That’s what I meant by AI. But this research was done as an online survey format with more than 1,000 U.S. adults. So, they just saw an online LinkedIn. They took it. There’s no skew in it.
KC: How do you take all of this data and turn it into effective workflow for Audacy?
Sarah Foss: The amazing thing about the survey is since it came from humans, we really wanted to know what the expectation was of our listeners to how we were going to deploy it. Although we had already been very clear to the industry and the marketplace and frankly, some of our technology partners, for us, generative AI and AI is about ensuring our talent and our creative thinkers have more time to do that, to create amazing content by eliminating a lot of the administrative work or a lot of the integration work or a lot of the busy work.
So Idil just proved the point, not only with what she and her team are doing right, which is using the technology to unleash some of the administrative work so that they can actually do more consultation, more deep thinking. Then the research proved that’s exactly what human beings, that’s what our listeners want us to do.
We have been very forward with the partnerships. We have, partnerships with Google, which is our enterprise platform. So, we are leaning into using Gemini across the enterprise. We are leaning into their large language model toolset called vertex, so that we can harness the power of AI, but it does not replace our data scientists. It does not replace the software developers, same across the organization when it comes to talent and to programing.
We have partnerships with Super Hi-Fi and Eleven Labs. These are known as best in the industry generative AI capabilities for content publishers but again, not to replace someone sitting in the studio and delivering the news in New York City or in Sacramento, where we want that human connection. We want our listeners to know that there’s a human being that is sitting there curating and making sure that the news is officially news.
Now to that point, there are some kinds of content that still have a lot of administration behind it. You’d be surprised how many different places you still have to go to actually get an accurate weather report. Generative AI can actually canvass all of the weather services and provide information in a 15 second, 30 second or 60 second sound bite that a news individual doesn’t have to take the time to go find all the different weather reports, aggregate it and write that copy.
Now she’s able to get the information, verify it, and make it her own, because she can take the copy and say, ‘It’s a beautiful day outside. I’m sitting in the studio here at 1010WINS’ or wherever you are. That’s the type of thing that Audacy really believes the technology will allow us to do is have the content creators, the talent, lean more into that trusting relationship with the listeners, and the tech is going to help them do that in an easier, more streamlined fashion.
KC: Doesn’t this get rid of a weather producer position that would typically be there?
SF: Those positions have already transitioned to a lot of the people that are doing more in the newsroom. So we actually want that news reporter to focus more on developing the story than finding weather. Traffic is another good instance like that, where we want the news reporter to focus on story development, not just regurgitation of information or giving that personal touch around the information.
We’re not leaning in for generative AI to actually develop news stories, or be the voice of a morning show and talk about Taylor Swift. Why? We want a human being to do that. It’s way more interesting to listen to someone talk about the Eras Tour from her perspective, then to hear what generative AI will spit out. But traffic and weather, that’s okay.
KC: Where are some of the places you think AI is going to help unleash more creativity within Audacy?
SF: Letting the creatives have more time to be creative and think about what they want to share, about the music, about the news, about what’s happening in the local community. That’s one place right now. There still are a lot of different system requirements that we have to put information in, just so we air the spot at the right time. Removing those type of tasks.
So, our producers, our brand managers, and our talent really get to think and deliver more fun content. That’s what we want for them to be able to do. Idil again gave a great example of how generative AI is helping her team be able to connect our sellers to information faster. Anything we can do to help the advertiser connect more to Audacy, or frankly, even understand how we can deliver value for them.
Another great example of where generative AI can actually help by doing more competitive research for our advertisers, leveraging that technology, and then that seller can really help hone in on what are the best ways that the advertising can reach targeted communities. What’s the best programing that’s going to deliver an ROI for that business? We want the big thinking and the personal relationships that we have, not only with our listeners via over air, but also with our advertisers to be our staff, the human beings that do their jobs really well. Anything else we can help automate that is just process oriented or information flow. We think that’s a huge ROI for us.
KC: Do you see it having more of an impact on advertising and revenue and helping radio stations in a spot where some people feel radio is losing money?
SF: We believe that generative AI is going to help our sellers sell more and build long standing relationships with the advertisers, because we’re removing some of the routine tasks that any account executive in any industry has to do. That’s the type of power where we are giving back time for someone to build more of those relationships. Hopefully, go out and find new advertisers and sell them on the value of the integrated platforms that we have at Audacy.
We’re also using this type of technology to help build our audience profiles so that we can truly have our sellers say, listening to WIP Sports Radio in Philadelphia and advertising their can also be used on our digital app. We can advertise on the website.
We can find ways that we can target those consumers you’re looking for specifically through data, again augmented with generative AI. Those type of connections help create better results for campaigns. It helps us deliver, exceeding value for the advertisers. And tech then is kind of like that background player of making sure we just do that faster and with better results. It still is the human being that is building the relationship, building the campaign and understanding the advertiser’s goals and objectives.
KC: Will you be collecting more data when it comes to AI and how it’s affecting your listeners?
IC: I think it’s imperative to keep an eye on how people negotiate their time, their work and their listening habits, their media changing habits and technology. So, we’re always keeping an eye on our listeners’ habits. And we’re very interested in their actual daily rituals, because we know from other studies we’ve done that they bring audio into whatever they do. So, imagine having more mealtime. Imagine having more time to do sports or listen to sports, because something in the consumer’s lifestyle has changed dramatically, and now they have more time to do what they want to do. We are cognizant of changes and are always keeping an eye on audio rituals.
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
