will.i.am

will.i.am — William Adams (born 1975) — is the frontman and producer of the Black Eyed Peas and one of pop music’s longest-running technology evangelists. Beyond seven Grammys, his résumé includes a stint as Intel’s director of creative innovation, early investments in Beats, and a string of his own hardware and software ventures.

A decade of AI bets

His company FYI (Focus Your Ideas) builds an AI-powered collaboration app populated by AI personas, and in 2024 he launched RAiDiO.FYI, interactive radio stations hosted by conversational AIs that greet listeners by name — a concept TIME profiled as an attempt to reinvent radio itself. The same year SiriusXM debuted “will.i.am Presents The FYI Show,” featuring qd.pi (“cutie pie”), an AI co-host he described as “ultra-freaking factual and analytical” against his own “ultra-freaking colorful and expressive.”

Unlike many music-industry peers, will.i.am frames AI primarily as an inclusion opportunity — pushing for AI literacy in underserved communities through his i.am Angel Foundation and arguing the technology should “help materialize dreams” for creators without resources. He acknowledges the crossroads is “delicate,” but his posture has stayed consistently, enthusiastically pro-adoption.

Skeptics note that his tech ventures have a mixed commercial record, and AI-hosted radio has struck some critics as a gimmick. But his advocacy predates the hype cycle by a decade, and his projects put AI in listeners’ hands rather than merely talking about it.