Last week Google’s research team released Piano Genie, an AI-powered music program that simulates a full 88-key piano from just 8 buttons. Inspired by Guitar Hero, the program simplifies the creation of complex-sounding musical harmonies by having a neural network that has been trained on a dataset of existing classical music ‘predict’ a suitable next note.

Yes, it’s a fun Friday innovation, but one with deeper insights as always ;)

Instant status skills. It was waaaaaay back in 2006 (!!) that we first wrote about STATUS SKILLS and the shift from ‘having things’ to being proficient at ‘doing things’. So there’s nothing new about underlying desire that this initiative speaks to. What’s new – and where we continue to see endless opportunities – is how technology is making it easier and faster for users to develop those skills. Or if you’re more cynical, enabling people to pretend to have those skills ;) But check your cynicism. Piano Genie might be a fun diversion, but Instagram built a multi-billion dollar business by making everyone (appear to be) a great photographer. What skill would your customers most love to have? Could you help them develop it, almost instantly?  

Video killed the radio star? The current popular narrative is that automation will destroy jobs. Indeed, when Pew surveyed nearly 10,000 people across 10 markets, large majorities believe that robots and computers will do much of the work currently done by humans. However look elsewhere and you can see an abundance of creativity! Just one tiny but very telling sign of the times: there are now 30,000 tracks uploaded to Spotify every single day. As always, trends are never totally one-way. How will you apply automation in order to empower your audience, not eliminate them?

Got some time to kill? Give Piano Genie a try for yourself!