SCA today announced that it has become an early-stage investor in Australian artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning company SourseAI, which will provide content recommendations on the LiSTNR app to continue to improve the user experience.
Consumption of digital audio is growing in Australia and is expected to reach 80% of the population by 2024 and SCA’s LiSTNR is designed to be a world class digital audio listening experience.
SourseAI is a patented augmented intelligence platform that will be used by SCA to discover audience behavioural insights, listener mood states and how to power dynamic cohorts of LiSTNR users, ultimately enabling a hyper-personalised experience across its digital audio platform LiSTNR.
SCA’s in-house analytical capability will be enhanced by SourseAI, which ingests data from SCA’s systems and applies a machine learning algorithm designed to power content recommendations to users. SCA has already connected content metadata including listener topic analysis, from its investment earlier this year in local AI company Sonnant, as well as listening and marketing data to drive data-led decision making within the business.
SCA will also leverage other SourseAI capabilities, such as forecasting and anomaly detection, to understand growth across content genres, predict seasonal content scheduling peaks and troughs, and to explore changing content tastes.
“The key advantage of developing LiSTNR within SCA is our ability to determine our own future, and we’re leading the market by investing in local, high performance, deep technology partnerships that can accelerate our roadmap. Our investment in SourseAI allows us to deliver a deeply personalised listening experience to consumers, based on consumption habits and context. It also enables us to gain a rich understanding of our audience’s behaviour, enabling us to continue to create market leading advertising solutions,” SCA head of digital and innovation, Chris Johnson (pictured), said.
“The AI and Machine Learning space is scaling rapidly, and we believe that investing in the Australian entrepreneurial ecosystem to support our digital audio ambitions is the best strategy. SourseAI is the right partner to deliver on our vision and our investment will provide significant long-term value to both parties.”
SourseAI CEO, Matt Jones, said: “Sourse’s mission is to apply our patented machine learning algorithms to enhance the experience for LiSTNR audiences using a whole range of data. This includes understanding the tastes and behaviours of every single user on the LiSTNR platform. Then, using our advanced recommendations and personalisation algorithms, we can ensure the right content is surfaced in each individual listener’s feed any time they engage with the app.
“Machine learning models make it possible to drive the key media metrics of frequency of engagement and time spent. By personalising the experience with Sourse, SCA will progress these metrics, resulting in a more engaged audience, and delivering improvement across both advertising targeting and yield.”