Most business entities have a long standing common goal, growth. With that in mind, those behind the management of those entities are constantly looking for a means to grow their business and in the music industry, that is also the case. The big three music labels are consistently in the spotlight for announcing joint venture partnerships or acquiring independent record labels to increase their market share. Whilst growth is at the core of most businesses, another factor is a close second, efficiency. With the rise of Artificial intelligence (AI) in many sectors such as automotive transportation, it's found its way to music and may change the future of the business forever.

One lunchtime about three years ago, Hazel Savage and Aron Pettersson set a new piece of software running on a laptop then went to a nearby mall for a sandwich. They hoped, on their return, to have the answer to a question that would change the music industry: can a computer pick a hit record? The pair had just founded their firm, Musiio, in Singapore's Boat Quay district. Pettersson, who is Swedish, was a specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) with a background in neuroscience; Savage, a British music industry professional with tech pedigree, had worked for Shazam and the Pandora streaming service. These are written by little-known artists and commonly used for soundtracks and podcasts.

This morning Instrumental, a startup that uses vision-powered AI to detect manufacturing anomalies, announced that it has closed a $20 million Series B led by Canaan Partners. The company had previously raised $10.3 million across two rounds, including a $7.5 million Series A in mid-2017. According to a release, the Series B was participated in by other venture groups, including Series A investors Root Ventures, Eclipse Ventures, and First Round Capital, which also led its Seed round. Stanford StartX also took part in the new investment. Instrumental's technology is a hybrid of hardware and software, with a focus on the latter.

The UK company P2i adds water-repelling nanocoatings to smartphones and other gadgets. Normally, it flies engineers to its clients' factories to identify and solve quality-control problems. That's not an option in a world where flights are grounded, borders closed, and security tightened. So in some plants, P2i now relies on a system that uses artificial intelligence to look for even the slightest defects. "Over the last four months, since the coronavirus, we've had to reevaluate how we are going to service and deploy our machines worldwide," says Neal Harkrider, chief operating officer at P2i.