AI Chooses Your Music — “Aplayz”

“What kind of music goes well with a cup of coffee at 11 a.m. on a cloudy day?” Aplayz is a company that answers this question. It has developed a service that provides music tailored to each space, whether it’s a restaurant or a café. Unlike conventional music streaming services that focus on personal preferences, Aplayz focuses on the space itself—automatically selecting music based on factors such as weather, time of day, and the preferences of visiting customers.

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To use the service effectively, users must answer a few questions during the initial setup. First, they input their business type and location. The business type helps reflect the overall atmosphere, while the location allows the system to change songs according to real-time weather conditions. For example, a café will have café-style music, and a bar will play bar-appropriate music, with playlists that adjust automatically to match the day’s weather—whether it’s rain or snow.

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Users also input the typical age group of their visitors. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense to play 1980s music in a place frequented by Gen MZ. In the future, Aplayz plans to link its service with CCTV and cameras to analyze the age of visitors, movement patterns, and ambient noise in real time to further refine the music selection.

Users can also set the ratio between international and domestic songs, and choose from several mood options. The service also overcomes a key drawback of regular music streaming platforms, which typically cannot be used for public playback due to copyright restrictions. Since most streaming platforms are designed for personal use, playing them in commercial spaces is considered illegal.

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The inspiration for the business came from a simple experience. CEO Bae Jung-jin (41) recalled, “I was eating at a restaurant, and Park Bo-ram’s song ‘Beautiful’ kept playing on repeat. Only one song played over and over. I thought, how great would it be if the right music for each space could play automatically?”

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The business became more concrete after Aplayz was selected as an in-house startup. With company support, they refined the service and conducted experiments to test customized space functions in select locations, addressing shortcomings during the testing phase.

The service developed successfully, and within a year, Aplayz spun off as an independent company. Since January, the team has established a new office at the Seoul Startup Hub in Mapo District, Seoul. When asked about their thoughts on becoming independent, they said, “Now that we’re handling everything ourselves, we realize just how much there is to do. At the same time, we appreciate what a great opportunity it was to start as an in-house venture. Having achieved independence through hard work, we’re determined to keep pushing forward toward success.”

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Looking ahead, Aplayz aims to expand its business and evolve into a music promotion platform. CEO Bae said, “Although tens of thousands of new songs are released, only a few make it to the top 100 charts. We hope to become a music promotion channel that introduces new songs suited to each space’s atmosphere, allowing customers to easily discover fresh music when visiting those spaces.”

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Reporter: Heo Kyung-gu nine@kmib.co.kr

[‘Aplayz’: AI chooses your music for you], Kukmin Ilbo, 2023-03-14