{"id":33111,"date":"2025-08-30T15:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T15:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/33111\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T15:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T15:38:09","slug":"edmonton-radio-stations-ai-host-part-of-global-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/33111\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton radio station\u2019s AI host part of global trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Rogers store signage shown in Mississauga, Ont., Monday, Dec.16, 2024.Richard Buchan\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A disc jockey playing alt-rock tunes on Edmonton<\/a>\u2019s airwaves on a late Sunday night introduces herself and jokes about being regularly asked about firmware updates.<\/p>\n

Her sarcasm, she says, also gets auto-corrected.<\/p>\n

When she first began hosting, she says songs on her show would buffer during transitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it remixes traffic reports,\u201d says Sarah, an AI DJ during a two-hour weekly radio show before introducing Black Parade by American rock band My Chemical Romance.<\/p>\n

Rogers Sports & Media says Sarah began hosting on Sundays from 10 p.m. to midnight on SONiC 102.9 a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Lori Beckstead, a radio and sound studies professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, says the computerized DJ is one of a few that have popped up at radio stations across Canada and the world in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in this stage in the world of technology that we can create voices out of thin air, basically using AI that seem to have personality and sound human,\u201d Beckstead said.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Can you fall in love with AI?<\/a><\/p>\n

Rogers Sports & Media, in a statement, says the use of the technology is purely additive to the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in a time slot that previously didn\u2019t have a DJ, so no staffing impacts,\u201d a spokesperson said in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using the technology to explore opportunities to improve the listener experience on radio during music-only programming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogers says a human producer oversees Sarah\u2019s scripts and guides the content throughout the broadcast.<\/p>\n

Rogers did not respond to questions about hiring a human to host the Sunday time slot or whether Sarah would be a permanent feature of the radio station.<\/p>\n

Beckstead said Sarah\u2019s presence during a not-so-late weekend broadcast in Edmonton is disheartening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a commercial enterprise, the goal is to make as much money as possible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would welcome AI to do the jobs that it can do \u2014 if we lived in a society where the humans who are being displaced could have a basic level of income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Byrnes, the owner of Byrnes Communications Inc., said his AI radio hosts, Cleo and Layla, were one of the first to hit Canadian airwaves when they launched on a pair of his Ontario stations two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t find anybody to work overnights … so we decided putting an AI voice on the overnight was better than nothing,\u201d he said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not taking any jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using AI at work? Be open and honest about it, experts say<\/a><\/p>\n

Cleo and Layla host from midnight until 5:30 a.m., he said, until a human takes over to inform thousands of local news, traffic and weather during the morning commute.<\/p>\n

They initially only played music and talked about the weather, Byrnes said, but now the station is advertising other shows in their scripts.<\/p>\n

Once every hour, they pick a topic from a platform that scans social media to see what people are talking about within the station\u2019s geographic boundary, he said.<\/p>\n

Then, they run it through their own computerized filtration system, removing disinformation or offensive information, before discussing the topic on air.<\/p>\n

They also look at the music log and search for information about the artists before playing their music. Before introducing a song by pop star Sabrina Carpenter, Cleo describes the artist as a former Disney Channel actress.<\/p>\n

Station workers will listen back to the shows to catch errors, including the time one of the jockeys mispronounced Regina, the city in Saskatchewan, Byrnes said.<\/p>\n

Over time, Byrnes said, the station has played with how the jockeys sound, such as the pace of their voices and their personalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to pick the voice we want,\u201d he said. \u201cDo we want it to be cheeky? Do we want it to be sarcastic? Do we want it to be bright?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played around with that to get a voice that we think works.\u201d<\/p>\n

After two years of work, he described the jockeys as \u201cbasic\u201d sounding.<\/p>\n

Bynres said between 10,000 to 15,000 people listen to Cleo and Layla overnight.<\/p>\n

Still, he said AI won\u2019t fully replace on-air talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do think that those who don\u2019t embrace AI will end up getting replaced,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reality is we\u2019re all interacting with AI multiple times a day. Most of us don\u2019t even realize it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Rogers store signage shown in Mississauga, Ont., Monday, Dec.16, 2024.Richard Buchan\/The Canadian Press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[4320,4309,4321,9,4302,4322,995,4301,4314,4315,4311,4303,4300,179,2597,18,117,440,4313,4307,4333,4304,4305,3428,19,17,4310,3521,3136,4323,337,4306,4328,4329,4331,4326,4330,4324,4327,430,4317,4318,790,4316,4325,4308,82,4319,4312,4222,66,4332],"class_list":{"0":"post-33111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-eire","24":"tag-entertainment","25":"tag-environment","26":"tag-federal-government","27":"tag-foreign-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","31":"tag-government","32":"tag-ie","33":"tag-ireland","34":"tag-life-news","35":"tag-lifestyle","36":"tag-local-news","37":"tag-manitoba","38":"tag-music","39":"tag-national-news","40":"tag-new-brunswick","41":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","42":"tag-northwest-territories","43":"tag-nova-scotia","44":"tag-nunavut","45":"tag-ontario","46":"tag-pei","47":"tag-photos","48":"tag-political-news","49":"tag-political-opinion","50":"tag-politics","51":"tag-politics-news","52":"tag-quebec","53":"tag-sports-news","54":"tag-technology","55":"tag-travel","56":"tag-trudeau","57":"tag-us-news","58":"tag-world-news","59":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}