Doug Melville interviews seven-time Grammy winner and Black Eyed Peas founder will.i.am at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France. The conversation centers on using AI for creativity and problem-solving.
will.i.am shares two decades of history in tech — his pivot from music into hardware, early work with music executive Jimmy Iovine, building an AI watch with contextual voice capabilities, and early investments in companies including Tesla, Twitter, Lovable, and Anthropic.
He explains his platform, FYI.ai, a secure, collaborative messenger built for large files and IP protection, and argues it's too early to fear AI — comparing it instead to a life “cheat code” worth learning.