School of Information (iSchool) alumnus Juan Camilo Sanchez (B.S. ‘13), along with fellow co-founders, recently launched Orphiq, an AI productivity platform for music artists and their teams.

“Music artists today have to be their own content creators, marketing managers, labels, and publishers…I told myself there had to be a better way for them to build sustainable careers,” said Sanchez, who also shared that a large part of his career involved helping artists avoid burnout.

Orphiq, a name which blends the mythological musician Orpheus with IQ, is structured specifically for music artists, providing them with insights and recommendations based on the most up-to-date practices within their industry—right down to ideas for their TikTok videos.

“A lot of the general-use AI platforms are trained on 2023 or 2024 data, so they don’t have the latest best practices,” Sanchez explained. “When our artists use those, they get maybe one or two good ideas out of ten for a TikTok video. When they use Orphiq, it’s so personalized to the artist and to what’s current that it provides eight or nine good ideas out of ten.”

Sanchez is the perfect candidate for developing a product catered to artist needs, having spent his career working for giants in the music and tech industries like Sony, Meta, and Spotify while also helping to grow  the careers of critically acclaimed artists like Camilo, Nicki Nicole, and HUMBE.

But launching a startup doesn’t come without its challenges. This experience brought Sanchez back to his roots, requiring him to wear multiple hats (the way he would have early in his career) to help launch Orphiq off the ground. Whether he’s recruiting new clients, gathering product feedback, or making improvements to the website, Sanchez will do whatever it takes to make the platform a success.

And that hard work seems to be paying off. Sanchez and team currently have over 100 artists on the platform, with over half the users already opted in to the paid version, which offers greater access and features.

“Artists who learn to work with AI will have a leg up over those who don’t,” explained Sanchez. He expects that gap to widen as AI becomes more advanced, and not just in the music industry.

“As we enter this AI world, it’s the critical thinking skills that are going to help you. Be curious and ask questions. That’s when you start seeing the opportunities that are not obvious,” Sanchez said.

As Orphiq continues to evolve beyond its beta version, Sanchez plans to continue to use feedback to make his product the go-to AI productivity tool for music artists in the modern age.