Michael Dougherty, CEO & Co-Founding father of Remix AI, a free-to-use app for exploring creativity with AI. The app allows users to create, share, and get inspired in a community filled with artists and artistic minds.

Tell us about your journey in technology.

I actually have all the time been enthusiastic about advanced platforms that mix recent platforms and advanced technologies with creation, media, and music. I started off working for one in all the earliest digital music platforms when the Web was just taking off. We built the primary global platform for mobile music downloads. It was a brand new concept, we built up an enormous catalog including licensing, and were acquired by Nokia who needed to compete with iTunes.

From there I joined Tellme Networks, an organization began by Netscape and Microsoft engineers who had developed the primary consumer voice platform for speech recognition. Tellme Networks is a forerunner for what we see in AI platforms today, combining the machine learning models of speech, large data sets to assist train and tune those engines, and consumer design to assist users enjoyment of using these powerful technologies. Tellme was acquired by Microsoft, and we inspired the creation of one other company, like Siri, which was eventually acquired by Apple to compete with Tellme and Microsoft

Next, I co-founded an organization within the audio space called Jelli. We built the most important audio promoting platform for radio. That company was eventually acquired by the most important radio company within the US, iHeartMedia.

Big firms have to tap recent tech to evolve and expand their very own businesses—identifying those technologies early and rapidly developing them into something special is my passion.

When did you first realize that you just had the entrepreneurial bug?  

I’ve all the time been an optimist in regards to the potential that technology can do for our society. I grew up throughout the PC era, began my profession on the dawn of the Web, and co-founded my first company at first of the mobile revolution. In all these phases, I actually have been excited to see how all of us could make a contribution to those inflection points which have shaped our world.

For me, the generative AI epiphany got here after I saw digital artists experimenting with recent generative AI creation tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion to create images that looked like photography but were uncanny—these artists saw that AI could collaborate with humans to reflect back things about our world which were recent and exciting. As a user, I noticed it could open up creativity for anyone and result in an explosion of creative content, the way in which smartphones made us all photographers, a few of whom morphed into influencers.

I actually have little doubt that folks using gen AI will find yourself creating trillions of images and videos, and these will shape our culture in ways we are able to’t predict today.

Could you share the genesis story behind Remix AI?  

As we saw digital artists experimenting with AI creation, we began to try these tools out ourselves. The magic of with the ability to create images and videos in ways in which weren’t possible before got us excited.

A few of our investors and advisors built Instagram, and we saw analogies to how AI enables people to create and share in recent ways, like Instagram created for mobile digital photos. We brainstormed how we could enable recent experiences on this recent category. We believed (and still do) that AI creates recent categories of consumer apps, unlocking experiences for us all.

For that to occur, we considered designing a brand new sort of app with AI from the bottom up, to assist everyone learn the best way to create using generative AI, and share their creations with their friends. This thought process led to the concept of Remix AI.

Remix AI is defined because the social app in your imagination. Are you able to elaborate on the way it enables users to remix content?  

Whenever you use Remix you possibly can scroll through a feed of creations by other users. A straightforward technique to start creating is by simply remixing a post another person has created, by hitting the remix button and adjusting the topic or the style or motion of the post.

You’ll be able to review the prompt that created it, the raw ingredient—that may be a learning experience in itself—to alter some aspect of it. You’ll be able to make subtle or radical changes of all types. We provide “filters” like those on Instagram for gen AI. You’ll be able to add audio and music, too. In unlimited ways, you possibly can riff off the unique creation. Remixes are like our “retweets”—they take an idea another person posted and allows it to echo-forward in fascinating ways, as themes, stories or funny memes

One interesting social component are the “Remix” each day challenges, how was this initially conceived and the way does it work?

Each day we’ve a Each day Remix challenge, based upon a cool creation that a community member had made before. As a Each day Remix, all the community can decide to remix that original post, taking the concept in lots of of directions. It is a fun and simple way for the community to interact with one another each day, to find out about AI creation, and to spark their very own creativity.

Remix AI users have a feed that’s powered by machine learning. Could you share some details on how the recommender engine works?

The Remix AI “For You” feed was designed to develop into higher at showing you the personalized content that you just like, using ML. In this manner, we were inspired by Tiktok’s approach to their feed.  We will use the info generated from the reactions of individuals to every creation, and your individual behavior and preferences to personalize the feed. You don’t must think, just swipe and go. That can develop into much more essential as generative AI creates a flood of recent content creation. We currently are training our ML feed and as more people join Remix and use our app, our platform becomes smarter

What’s your vision for Remix AI?

We imagine strongly that video is next, and that generative AI video technology is simply 18 to 24 months behind image generation. Video is so engaging, and for all of us to have the ability to create like we’ve a computer graphics studio in our back pocket, will unlock a brand new era for content creation.

This may affect our culture deeply across art, music, entertainment, and fashion. The “remix culture” we’ve seen within the last couple of a long time will only speed up now that anyone with a cell phone can create with generative AI. It’s exciting to see what it will do as more can unleash their creativity.