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South Korea-based leisure big HYBE revealed its This autumn and FY 2023 monetary outcomes final Monday (February 26).
The agency revealed that it surpassed annual revenues of 2 trillion South Korea Gained (USD $1.66bn) in 2023, led by what it stated on its This autumn earnings name was “explosive progress in [its] album and live performance companies”.
That, although, wasn’t probably the most shocking factor that occurred on HYBE’s dialogue with analysts that day.
In the course of the introduction on the earnings name, HYBE CEO Jiwon Park outlined the enterprise’s efficiency over the previous 12 months, which included recorded music income progress of 75.8% YoY.
The exec additionally highlighted the corporate’s growth into Latin Music, the efficiency of its Weverse fan platform, and the continuing success of what the corporate calls its “sturdy multi-label system”.
“In 2023 we tried and proved most of the issues that I needed to perform we demonstrated the wholesome fundamentals of the multi-label construction,” stated Jiwon Park.
“We are going to proceed to increase our enterprise globally in 2024 [and] we’ll hold striving to realize stable progress round HYBE’s artists, labels, options and platforms.”
Then issues went a bit of… WTF.
On the finish of Park’s opening remarks, previous to the Q&A session the place he and CFO Kyung-Jun Lee have been grilled by traders concerning the firm’s efficiency in 2023, got here a word from the decision operator:
“As we speak’s earnings presentation was not delivered by CEO Jiwon Park himself, however by TTS [text-to-speech], an AI voice synthesis expertise by Supertone.
“Whenever you enter [the] CEO’s voice pattern and desired textual content, AI generates the speech in his voice.”
Supertone, as long-time MBW readers will know, is the AI voice replication software program that HYBE totally acquired in a $32 million deal in 2022.
The operator added: “We thought it might be an excellent alternative to showcase Supertone’s expertise to the traders.
“Now CEO [Jiwon Park] and CFO [Kyung-Jun Lee] will handle your questions of their actual voices.”
“As we speak’s earnings presentation was not delivered by CEO Jiwon Park himself, however by TTS, an AI voice synthesis expertise by Supertone.”
You learn that proper: HYBE showcased its proprietary AI tech on its newest earnings name, by producing a voice clone of its personal CEO, Jiwon Park.
That voice clone of Jiwon Park, and not Jiwon Park himself, delivered the opening remarks on the earnings name.
You’ll be able to hearken to the HYBE This autumn earnings name your self right here.
Based in 2020, Supertone claims to have the ability to create “a hyper-realistic and expressive voice that [is not] distinguishable from actual people”.
The corporate arguably proved as a lot on HYBE’s earnings name final week.
Supertone first generated world media consideration in January 2021 with its so-called Singing Voice Synthesis (SVS) expertise.
The corporate used this tech to “resurrect” the voice of South Korean people famous person Kim Kwang-seok, with the following AI-generated voice debuted on Korean tv present Competitors of the Century: AI vs Human.
In Might final 12 months, HYBE showcased the chances of what it may possibly do with Supertone’s expertise when it launched a brand new single known as Masquerade from an artist known as MIDNATT.
The observe was touted by HYBE because the “first-ever multilingual observe produced in Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese language, Spanish and Vietnamese”.
In keeping with HYBE, MIDNATT (aka Lee Hyun) sang the observe within the six languages, and utilizing AI, “the pronunciation information of native audio system was utilized to the observe to additional refine the artist’s pronunciation and intonation”.
The multilingual observe employed the expertise of Supertone.
“I don’t know the way lengthy human artists could be the one ones to fulfill human wants and human tastes.”
Bang Si-Hyuk, talking with Billboard final 12 months
For HYBE, the funding in AI voice expertise by way of Supertone seems to point no less than two issues.
Firstly, a significant effort to globalize its music by breaking down language limitations, as evidenced by the multi-lingual rollout of the MIDNATT single final 12 months.
And second, it factors extra typically to the usage of AI at HYBE turn into much more prevalent than it’s at present – as indicated by HYBE Chairman Bang Si-Hyuk in an interview with Billboard final 12 months.
“I’ve lengthy doubted that the entities that create and produce music will stay human,” stated Bang Si-Hyuk.
“I don’t know the way lengthy human artists could be the one ones to fulfill human wants and human tastes. And that’s turning into a key issue for my operation and a technique for HYBE.”Music Enterprise Worldwide
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