On the eve of the annual BSM Summit in Chicago beginning tomorrow morning, I wanted to address a story that should matter to not only sports media, but all of radio talent in general regarding AI Ashley. When I first started as a columnist at Barrett Media earlier this year, I wrote a piece about how radio stations need to do a better job of telling their story. Radio rarely tends to celebrate its wins, post ratings success stories, or say thank you to the people who allow them the opportunity for success.
This week, radio had a major success story. It didn’t involve a promotion, a charity fundraiser, or a viral social post showing the power of radio. In fact, most people in radio may not even know that this win for the industry even happened. Radio scored a major win as Live 95.5 bid adieu to AI Ashley. Yes, a radio station decided to pivot away from artificial intelligence in favor of a human being.
Where’s the champagne? Where’s the party?
In an age of budget cuts and asking fewer people to do more, radio talnt should take this win and hang its skin on the wall. Live 95.5, which launched AI Ashley in June of 2023, announced the hire of Tamara Dhia as the new midday host on the contemporary hits station. Dhia comes to the Portland radio station with a background hosting for MTV, E! Network, and most recently, NTWRK in Los Angeles.
Most importantly, she’s human.
The Warning Shot Has Been Heard
The AI Ashley experiment by Live 95.5 was a warning shot to radio talent across the country when news arrived just under two years ago. It was seen as a step toward innovation utilizing RadioGPT, where radio stations could use the voices of radio talent through AI to provide a real-time model for “live and local” content between your favorite songs—without the use of an actual human being.
Trying something new in any business is nothing new. Trying something new in business where you publicly remove the personality from the radio station is another. When the news was announced several years ago, I thought to myself: Why announce it and be so public about it?
What were the benefits of telling your audience that their favorite voice on the radio is fake?
What were the benefits of informing the industry you’re test-driving technology with the sole purpose of cutting costs and people?
More importantly, who benefits from trying this in the first place? Don’t be fooled, companies may market AI to help assist workers with daily tasks. In the end, it’s more replacement than an assistant.
NBC News interviewed Live 95.5 content director Dylan Salisbury back in 2023 at the launch of AI Ashley, where he said the purpose wasn’t to try and fool anyone.
“We wanted to make sure that we are always transparent in saying when she’s Ashley Z, she’s going to say ‘Hey, it’s Ashley Z,’” said Salisbury in 2023. “When it’s AI Ashley, she will always address herself as AI Ashley.”
According to the piece done by NBC News in 2023, they said listeners “have been cool with it.” Less than two years later, AI Ashley is removed. Why?
Could it be that maybe those same listeners who were “cool with it” at first fell out of love with AI Ashley?
Could it be that by removing live talent from the station, it became a tougher sell to get local advertisers attached to AI as their endorser?
Maybe Live 95.5 shouldn’t have been so open about their test run with AI Ashley. As radio has always been a theater-of-the-mind type of medium, why not play with the minds of your listeners using AI—without them knowing?
Two weeks ago, an Australian radio station, CADA, made headlines after it was discovered that they had an AI personality named DJ Thy who had been on the station for months. CADA wasn’t up front with their listeners about the use of artificial intelligence at first. Following an admission that they had been using an AI-generated DJ in their weekday middays daypart, the radio station didn’t pull the concept, instead choosing to continue with DJ Thy.
No apology. No removal. No reason given why they continue or why they used DJ Thy in the first place. Even more reason to celebrate the decision made by Live 95.5.
AI Ashley And The Future Of Innovation
If you’ve worked in a radio station, you know the AI jock trend will likely continue. Too many top jocks on radio stations across the country are voice tracking multiple markets every single day. Why would you pay a radio jock more money to add markets to their daily duties when you can simply record their voice for AI to take over and spread that person’s name, image, and likeness across more brands in more markets for less cost?
Makes complete sense to me. Music radio in general has lost the local personality in its local brands years ago. AI Ashley wasn’t even in Portland—the real Ashley Z is in Michigan. It’s hard enough to relate to someone on the opposite end of the country when you only know the bullet points about the area from what’s provided by the programmer.
We’ve all turned on a radio in our home markets from time to time and heard a mispronunciation of a local concert venue, a key intersection or highway, or even a local sports team or player.
While the radio station, the local media, and industry coverage of the removal of AI Ashley have been mute, this is a win for the people who have dedicated their passion to the radio industry.
Saying Goodbye To AI Ashley Means Investment In People
Back in March, I wrote that radio has forgotten its most important metric: people.
It was the single largest column I’ve written on Barrett Media in terms of feedback from broadcasting talent, staff, sales, and management. I received appreciation, thank-you notes, and texts saying this is exactly what needed to be said for the radio industry. I wrote that piece in response to the latest round of layoffs from Audacy, saying that radio needs to try something different. Invest in talent to connect with your listener before that listener goes and finds something else to connect to.
Ratings depend on entertaining and unique talent that stand out from your playlist. Your local advertising dollars require it. And without those talent, you die in the digital world when you play from behind, like radio has for a generation.
When Live 95.5 took AI Ashley off the air, that was a radio station trying something different. It was a radio station understanding that talent matters, connection matters, and the industry matters.
This was a win for radio, a win for the listener, and it should be celebrated across the industry.
AI Ashley won’t be the first attempt, and it surely won’t be the last, as companies are always looking for ways to do more with less and be cost-effective. For now, this is a moment where radio talent in every format should be celebrating this win across the nation—embracing the news with the mindset that the next attempt to repeat the experiment is around the corner.
Enjoy the last sips of that champagne. Today is a new day to be great!
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
