- industry insights
Move over, Shazam — Einar Helde wants you to 'AIMS it' to find your next song
If you ask AIMS co-founder Einar Helde, becoming verbiage is the dream — music professionals 'AIMSing' when searching for the perfect track, just as we 'Google' info or 'Shazam' a song. Is he kidding? A little. But maybe not so much.
"I'm trying to create the verbiage of 'let's AIMS it’ if you want to find a good song in your catalog, but nobody else on my team believes we can do it."
Said with a laugh, it’s a light-hearted comment that reveals a deeper, very real aspiration: to make AIMS so indispensable to music search for catalogs that it becomes part of the industry’s everyday language. The one tool that covers everything. The obvious choice.
Looking at the clients already using AIMS daily, like APM Music, Universal Production Music, Warner Chappell PM, Hipgnosis, Extreme Music, BMG PM... Einar might not be that crazy.
These insights come from Christopher Wieduwilt's (The AI Musicpreneur) interview with Einar, where he spoke about going from broke law student to AI music founder.
How AI Music Search Makes "AIMS'ing" Possible
AIMS isn't just another music tech company. It has redefined how professionals find music through AI-powered search capabilities. At its core, AIMS helps users discover music with industry-leading accuracy — even in ways that were previously impossible:
- Similarity Search: Drop in a reference track or link and instantly find similar songs in your catalog
- Prompt Search: Describe what you're looking for (or the visuals you’re working with) in conversational terms, entirely in your own words
- Lyrics Search: Find tracks by describing the lyrical themes, topics and sentiment you want them to be about
- Playlist curation: Build playlists with AI assistance that suggests complementary tracks perfectly fitting the playlist’s sonic profile
The beauty of AIMS is how directly (and simply) it solves age-old industry questions. "How can I get creative in the first five seconds?" Einar asks, reflecting on his own hands-on sync experiences that led to him co-founding AIMS.
Back then, he desperately wanted to skip the endless sifting through irrelevant results, to get to creativity as fast as possible. Because when the very first track you hear clicks with you, you can go, "Okay, that's a fire melody. Now let me build on this." By that, he of course means: let me AIMS it.
How AIMS Turned Clients' Sync Licensing Dreams into Reality
What started as a solution to a common problem — finding the right music quickly — has evolved into something music professionals have been waiting for for decades.
"We get love letters from clients saying, 'I've been dreaming about this since the '90s.'"
The dramatic impact on playlist automation, music discovery and beyond:
- Searches that once took hours can now take just 5 minutes and cover the full catalog, including versions and submixes
- Playlist management that consumed a week per month can now be automated, while keeping the music expert’s taste in the driver’s seat
- Music supervisors can discover hidden gems they would have missed using traditional search methods
"We have examples of clients saying, ‘We spend a week, a month keeping our playlists up to date.’ I'm like, but we can do that automatically for you."
The Shazam parallel: From utility to vocabulary
Shazam transformed how we identify songs, becoming so ubiquitous that 'Shazaming' entered our lexicon. AIMS is already driving the world’s leading sync teams, and they’re using it every single day. So is there actually a big difference in the trajectory?
While Shazam helps consumers identify songs they hear, AIMS helps professionals find songs they need. But the principle is the same: solving a universal problem so effectively that users don’t need anything else.
That’s Einar’s vision, one that encapsulates AIMS' mission of making music search effortless and intuitive.
"If you’re a music professional that wants to find a good song, AIMS it."
The Future of AI Music Discovery for Catalogs
Many revolutionary ideas started as 'what ifs.' Einar’s casual slogan actually captures something profound about AIMS’ potential to transform music discovery.
The company's AI search model already made significant strides:
- Developed AI models that understand audio at a deep level
- Created intuitive interfaces that music professionals and their clients love
- Built features that save hours of tedious work each week
Whether or not 'AIMS it' becomes the next industry buzzword, the company's influence keeps growing. For music professionals struggling with massive catalogs and tight deadlines, AIMS has become a compelling, reliable solution — especially these days.
"My goal for AIMS is that you can find the track that works for your content faster than you can generate one."
AI Music Search for Sync and will 'AIMS it' actually become a verb?
So what do we make of this?
Similarity Search lets you drop in a reference track and find songs that sound like it — not songs that share the same tags. It's search by ear, at scale.
For sync teams, that translates to searches that take minutes instead of hours, hidden catalog gems that finally get discovered, and briefs answered in plain language instead of keyword guesswork.
And the Shazam comparison? Shazam tells consumers what song is playing. AIMS tells professionals which song they need. Same instinct, different job.
Will 'AIMS it' actually catch on? Einar's betting on it. The sync teams using it daily might already be proving him right.
The Bottom Line
As AI-generated content continues to dominate, it's always good to point out, AIMS helps people find (also known as assistive AI) the perfect human-created music. That just might be a mission worth becoming a verb.
So next time you're searching for the perfect track, why not 'AIMS it,' see what happens?
And if you haven't already, then book a demo here.