Amazon’s Latest AI Acquisition Is for Podcasts on Amazon Music

If you listen to podcasts on Amazon Music, you might soon be getting an AI assist. Amazon reportedly acquired Snackable AI at the end of last year. The audio intelligence startup’s technology automatically generates highlights and chapters in audio and video clips.

“In December 2022, Snackable joined Amazon to continue innovating and exploring new experiences on behalf of Amazon Music’s podcast customers,” Snackable AI’s LinkedIn page says. On that page, Snackable’s website is now listed simply as the Amazon Music page. 

Snackable AI CEO and founder Mari Joller’s LinkedIn page lists her job as AI and machine learning product leader at Amazon. “I’m building AI-powered products at Amazon Music Podcasts. Previously I was the founder and CEO of Snackable AI, an audio intelligence startup,” her page says.

As the New York Post noted Friday, a listing on the Product Hunt forum says Snackable AI instantly scans long audio clips to create “chapters, highlights and more.” This could make it easier for you to find certain info or a segment from a podcast without having to listen to an entire episode.

Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon Web Services last month launched a new cloud service called Amazon Bedrock that’s designed to let companies and developers improve their software with artificial intelligence. AWS also made Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI coding companion, generally available. AWS said CodeWhisperer, which is free, is the fastest and most accurate and secure way to generate code for Amazon services.

As AI becomes more sophisticated, it also becomes more pervasive. Amazon is just one of many tech companies wading into AI with chatbots or features. Others include Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, DuckDuckGo, Alibaba and Snapchat. Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk also reportedly created an artificial intelligence company, called X.AI.

See also: ChatGPT vs. Bing vs. Google Bard: Which AI Is the Most Helpful?

On Thursday, US Vice President Kamala Harris met with the CEOs of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT to discuss the risks associated with using AI.

“What you’re doing has enormous potential and enormous danger,” Biden told the CEOs, according to a video he tweeted out.

A letter signed by Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and others at the end of March had urged labs to take at least a six-month pause in artificial intelligence development due to the “profound risks” to society.

This followed the public debut of OpenAI’s GPT-4, an update to the large language model that powers the ChatGPT chatbot, in March. According to OpenAI, GPT-4 has fewer flaws, produces more-nuanced results and handles more-complex tasks than earlier versions. ChatGPT draws on the huge data sets used to train GPT-4 to answer questions and perform tasks, like passing the bar exam.

Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to create some personal finance explainers that are edited and fact-checked by our editors. For more, see this post.