It’s not every day you find yourself in the front seat of a car inside the halls of the Munich Motor Show, having a chat with one of the most recognisable figures in music and tech. But will.i.am doesn’t do ordinary – and neither does his latest creation.
I’ve come to see FYI Raidio in action. On the surface, it’s a new kind of infotainment system. In reality, it’s something far more ambitious: a conversational AI platform designed to take you way beyond playlists and presenters, into a world where radio talks back – and learns as it goes.
“What we are is a conversational AI platform that has re-imagined radio,” will tells me. “We call it FYI Raidio, which is a simulated station experience where you have an AI host that you can ask an infinite number of questions to and engage with. But it’s information woven through a tapestry of music. It’s not Spotify, it’s more like talk radio.”
It quickly becomes clear this isn’t just about music, although that plays a part. It’s about conversation, context and real-time relevance.
will.i.am flicks through a few of the themed stations – sports, fashion, headlines – each hosted by a different voice, each powered by a staggering amount of data. It doesn’t just sound clever, it is clever. The AI doesn’t just respond – it riffs and reacts playfully.
“Local information, global information, current events and breaking news that allow for banter and discussion is the true form of FYI Raidio,” says will.
We test it by jumping into a conversation about Tyler The Creator’s latest release and will.i.am fires off a barrage of questions – not to me, but to the AI: “What does that mean, actually? Who produced it? Where is Tyler from? What label is he signed to? Who wrote the song and what high school did he go to and what junior high school or middle school did he go to? What’s his mother’s name?”
The AI responds with precision, delivering not just facts but cultural context and visual references. It’s like the sleeve notes of old, brought to life with the tap of a voice command.
But this isn’t a closed loop. It’s connected to the real world, adapting and updating as it goes. I challenge it on Liverpool Football Club’s next match, deliberately trying to break the system, firing off a barrage of questions that I know the answers to. It gets most of them right, but thinks that Vincent Kompany is still the manager of Burnley, which he isn’t. I correct the system, and it recalibrates. will’s eyes light up.
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“That’s the reason why I said, okay, this is dangerous. Meaning, well, let’s see if it gets it right, because it’s going out there with our crawler architecture.”
It does get it right – eventually – and will explains how that process of correction is built in. “We call it the mobilities action-based layer,” he says.
He’s proud of what he calls the balance between automation and accuracy. While the platform can crawl and aggregate huge amounts of data, it avoids relying on third-party APIs like from sports site ESPN.
“It’s not going to ESPN. It’s getting info from RSS feeds in the same areas.”
I ask if it uses Wikipedia. “You have to be careful on that,” says will, “because Wikipedia and WolframAlpha – this information has all the credible sources that it needs to know, but it’s not crawling them and pinging them every minute.”
The tech behind FYI Raidio is as modular as it is powerful. It’s all running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform, with a scalable approach that allows car makers (OEMs) to integrate their own preferred AI back-end depending on which LLM (large language model) they use.
“Our product is LLM agnostic,” says will. “So we treat the LLM like cartridges. Whether you want to use Gemini, DeepSeek, GPT, Anthropic, Cohere – it doesn’t matter.”
“Now that we’re on a Snapdragon chip, Qualcomm is going to help us scale to different OEM partners, the OEM will select which chip it wants to use.”
In practice, that means this could appear in any brand’s vehicles. In fact, it’s already live in Mercedes-Benz models in the U.S.
“We’re talking about FYI Raidio on the Snapdragon chip that we announced at South by Southwest. And how we aim to take this to other cars.”
But FYI Raidio isn’t just about cars. will is keen to stress its potential for education and accessibility, too, working with Arizona State University to enhance educational technologies. And you can see how, eventually, different users in the car can use their own FYI Raidio feeds to inform them of the world around them and different places they see. Kids are likely to be enthralled.
FYI Raidio can be playful, too, as will.i.am catches sight of my footwear and sock choice. He scrolls through the station interface again and lands on the fashion channel. Then, with a cheeky grin, he tries a new command: “talk about stylist socks and shoes. Give everybody an update on these Nikes and polka dot socks.” Seconds later, a voice – warm, natural and casually confident – explains my questionable fashion choice without a hint of irony and adds a fun fact about Ancient Greek socks, signing off with a music track.
will.i.am beams. “That is awesome, dude. That’s fantastic.” And I have to agree.
Despite it all, will is very deliberate about drawing a line between AI and the human creative process. This isn’t an algorithm gone rogue – it’s a tool, and one he wants humans to remain in control of.
“Although AI is great, I think there needs to be some type of balance on human curation versus AI,” he says
“So we have one area that’s dedicated for AI doing everything. The other ones are human eyes looking at detail.”
One of will’s favourite use cases is explaining complex topics through pop culture metaphors. “Hey,” he prompts. “I’m trying to understand quantum entanglement. Can you break it down for me in football terms?”
It works. The system compares Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané to quantum particles, connected across space, always reacting to one another’s moves. I’d never understood quantum physics so well.
As well as the personalised content, FYI Raidio also lets you personalise who you talk to, with various fully voiced personas from American hip-hop to a posh British personality called Fiona.
“Oh bro, it’s my favourite,” admitted will. “She makes me feel safe. I don’t know why I love her.”
I suggest to will that maybe what he’s created isn’t radio at all – it’s beyond radio. will doesn’t miss a beat, exclaiming, “Beyond-dio. Beyond-dio.”
It’s a phrase he repeats with satisfaction. And it sticks.
FYI Raidio doesn’t just play music. It listens, learns and evolves. It doesn’t just broadcast, it converses. And in a world where technology is often passive, this is something entirely more powerful: an infotainment platform with curiosity at its core, guided by your voice and fuelled by will.i.am’s unshakable belief in creativity and connection.
Radio? Perhaps once. But now, it’s something else entirely. It’s Beyond-dio.
