Throughout my life, I’ve been drawn to a lot of different things. As a kid, I wanted to work in fashion. Later, I became fascinated by visual storytelling and minored in film. Music has always been another passion, even though I’ve never been a musician myself.

Professionally, I eventually found my way into sales and discovered a different kind of challenge I loved: understanding what matters to someone, connecting the right people, and watching an idea go from a conversation to something real.

Those interests might sound unrelated. But since joining micro1, I’ve had more opportunities than ever to bring them together. Last month, I helped lead a project that did exactly that.

We called it microsessions.

Over two days, we sponsored over 20 live performances across San Francisco, giving local musicians new stages and bringing more live music into the city. I got to pitch the idea to artists and bring them on board, shape the creative direction, design the merch and visual language, and co-direct our launch film. It holds a special place in my heart because it brought together so many things I’ve cared about over the years. What makes that even more meaningful is that I’ve found, at an AI company, the opposite of what some might expect: more room to be creative, not less.

The research side of microsessions was just as intentional. With the artists’ consent, we recorded portions of the performances to create real-world audio data for AI audio and music research.

The possibilities for data like this are huge. It can contribute to better music education, tools that turn performances into sheet music, systems that better understand instruments and musical structure, and technology that can improve how emerging artists and new music are discovered.

In doing this, we recognized there’s a lot of anxiety right now about what AI could mean for creators. Part of what we wanted microsessions to do is offer a different vision: one where technology learns from human creativity in order to expand it, not diminish it.

We truly believe nothing replaces human brilliance. Nothing replaces hearing someone perform live, or the taste, history, individuality, and years of experience an artist brings to their craft.

With microsessions, we wanted to create more opportunities for local artists while learning from real-world music to build technology that can actually support them. The future we want to help shape for AI in music and the arts isn’t one with less human creativity. It’s one where technology gives people more ways to explore, learn, collaborate, and turn an idea in their head into something they can share with the world.

I’m incredibly grateful to have helped shape the first edition of microsessions, and especially grateful to my team at micro1 and the artists who trusted us with their work and made the whole thing real.