People are just realizing Spotify's DJ X is a real person after woman meets him 'in the wild'
He's been bringing music to our ears for the past three years, and while you might think that Spotify's DJ X is just another artificial intelligence robot wittering in our ears, the true story behind his creation is even wilder.
It turns out that DJ X is a real man you can actually meet in real life, meaning you can finally put a face to a name when it comes to the world's most popular music app. Some 432 million people listen to Spotify every day, meaning millions likely have DJ X directly in their ears.
While Spotify has never been afraid of letting us know that the Premium feature of having a personalized disc jockey is controlled by AI, it's largely kept the identity of DJ X under wraps.
Over on TikTok, Grace Brassel was surprised to learn that the man behind the decks is Xavier "X" Jernigan, telling her followers how she just met the 'AI DJ X' in real-life.
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Panning round to Jernigan, his voice is instantly recognizable as he says: "Hey Grace, what's going on? My name is Xavier, my friends call me X. Coming up next, I've got ‘Maggots for Brains’ by Olivia Rodrigo, check it out."
With Brassel calling it 'crazy', a smiling Jernigan simply says, "I'm real," over and over again.
DJ X uses AI to analyze your favorite music, songs you listen to most frequently, and even your current mood to create a stream of old favorites, similar songs, and even new recommendations that you might not have considered.
More than just being some random guy with silky vocals, Jernigan is Spotify's head of cultural partnerships. If you think his voice might sound familiar and you swear you've never used DJ X, that's because the service was trained on over 300 episodes of Jernigan's "The Get Up" podcast.
Although coming to an end in April 2022, "The Get Up" has garnered over six million listeners. With this, Jernigan seemed perfect to bring DJ X to life.
Speaking to CNBC in 2024, Jernigan explained how DJ X merges old-fashioned disc jockeys with modern tech: "It’s a digitized version of me that’s recommending all these wonderful songs to them and providing that context and storytelling through the advent of AI."
Although Spotify was originally going to use a placeholder voice its AI, those in power wanted it to sound more like Jernigan and eventually went with the man himself.
He opened up further in a Reddit AMA, and when asked whether his Spotify voice is his real one or an exaggerated version, Jernigan admitted: "DJ X's voice is based on *my* voice and how I talk everyday. Yes, people recognize me and/or my voice all the time and it’s fun!
“People come up to me on the street and ask for a selfie or video for their wedding or their kid’s birthday! I feel humbled whenever someone recognizes me and screams 'You’re real?!!'"
Someone else questioned if he listens to himself, the real-life DJ X said: "I listen to DJ X everyday! Not to flex, but I’m in the top 1% of DJ listeners 😎 It can definitely be trippy hearing my voice say things I may not have actually said, but I love it."
Responding to Brassel's video, many were shocked that DJ X is a flesh-and-blood human. There were numerous requests for her to tell him to stop playing [insert song here], with the Brassel herself replying. "I told him to stop playing music from the most traumatizing years of my life 😂 aka 2024-2025."
While the replies show there are clearly some complaints about DJ X, we've got to admit our minds are blown that Xavier Jernigan is the guy behind the mystery.