New App To Allow Fans to Talk With AI Versions of K-pop Artists

A2O Entertainment, the US-based label and entertainment agency started by SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man, has developed an AI chatbot that will allow fans to “talk” to Chinese girl group A20 May and other artists from its roster.

Talk is cheap:

• The app is called Blooming Talk and will feature two communication modes: “Human Talk,” for direct messaging with artists; and “AI Talk,” which offers AI-generated responses from virtual replicas of the artists.

• It will also feature a real-time AI voice call function, allowing users to speak with the AI across 30 languages including English, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and French.

• As per Music Business Worldwide, the artists’ AI personas are trained on real artist conversations, and they adapt their responses to individual user preferences.

• The chatbot learns from every interaction and uses that information to customize future conversations.

• Blooming Talk will have strict ethical guidelines around sexual content and inappropriate language.

• All artists featured in the app have reportedly agree to participate “under fixed contract terms.”

Social feed:

• Blooming Talk will also have a social media feed to which artists can upload photos and texts.

• Users will be able to unlock an “exclusive photo” page depending on their interactions with that artist’s chatbot.

Timeline:

• The app will launch in August (date TBC), and will be available in Korea, China, Japan and the US.

• It was developed by the Soo-man-owned Blooming Chatbot, with assistance from Seoul-based language model startup Mindlogic.