Universal Music Group Names Òscar Celma as Company’s First Senior VP, Applied AI & Machine Learning

Òscar Celma has joined Universal Music Group (UMG) as senior vp, applied AI and machine learning — a first of its kind position, the company announced today (Sept. 28). Celma joins UMG from Condé Nast, where he oversaw machine learning and product analytics. Prior to that, he served as director of engineering at Spotify.

In his new role, Celam will report to Hannah Poferl, chief data officer at UMG. He will help the label develop and apply AI and machine learnings to its operations.

Related

“Òscar brings a unique blend of quantitative and product experience, deep expertise in AI and a love of music,” Poferl said in a statement. “He’s built teams that have delivered and knows how to turn data at scale into useful insights. With the breadth and depth of UMG’s data, there’s enormous potential for him to help our teams do more for our artists.”

While at Spotify, Celma helped with the development of AI DJ, Jam and Daylist, integrating new technologies into the streaming platform. Before working at Spotify, he worked in data science at Pandora/SiriusXM and was a senior research scientist at Gracenote. He was also a co-founder and served as chief innovation officer at BMAT Music Innovators.

“I’ve spent much of my career exploring how technology can serve artists, songwriters and music fans,” Celma said in a statement. “It’s an exciting time to join Universal Music Group, given its industry leadership in using AI to expand what’s creatively and commercially possible. I look forward to working with Hannah and leaders across UMG to advance our AI and machine learning capabilities to support human artistry.”

UMG has announced several AI partnerships in recent months, including one with Spotify that was unveiled at the tech company’s Investor’s Day conference in May that allowed for AI covers and remixes from participating songwriters and artists at UMG. On Sept. 10, UMG announced a deal with ElevenLabs that allows for remixes and mashups from music created by artists and songwriters who opt-in. The deal does not include ElevenLabs’ music creation app, ElevenMusic, that generates and edits new songs.