As AI redefines how we engage with culture, the old ways we classified music, film, and media are starting to look different. In this piece, Phil Rowley, Head of Futures at Omnicom Media Group, takes us on a journey, uncovering how AI’s hyper-personalisation and granular understanding of taste is driving a new era of what he calls ‘media microgenres’.
It’s 1997. You’re wandering down Oxford Street in London and duck into a gargantuan three-floor music store. You’re searching for an album by Portishead — an eerie collision of Hip-Hop and Alien jazz, shot through with samples from spaghetti westerns and 1950s horror-film soundtracks. It’s difficult to describe.
Inside, rows of clacking CD cases stretch to the vanishing point. But what’s most notable is the way those CDs are divided up. By just seven genres: Rock, Pop, Classical, Country & Western, Dance, HipHop, and the all-encompassing “Indie/Alternative.”
Even though some had taken to calling Portishead’s sound “Trip Hop,” you eventually find them filed under “Indie/Alternative” — a ridiculous fit for their genre-straddling soundscapes. But in the 90s, these were the pigeonholes, whether they captured your preferences or not. We were Rock fans. Or Hip-Hop fans. Or Pop fans. Except, of course, very few were ever just one of those things. And now, AI has recognised that.
The Rise of Media Microgenres
When I received my “musical round-up review” at the end of last year, I was surprised. Not just because, in the same way my doctor knows more about my cholesterol levels than I do, AI seems to have a better grasp of my music taste. But also because my top genre was something I’d never heard of: Ambient Dronecore. I didn’t know I liked Ambient Dronecore. But when I reviewed the tracks I’d been looping all year — minimal synth soundscapes with a constant ringing drone note — I realised, yes, that was my thing.
While no one likes to think their taste can be neatly categorised, algorithmic mastery of microgenres shows an increasingly nuanced understanding of the intersection and cross-pollination of taste.
Whilst a human brain struggles with limited neurological bandwidth due to Miller’s Law – the observation we have cognitive capacity to process only seven ideas simultaneously – an algorithm can hold an almost infinite number of concepts in its working memory to spot linkages and overlaps in commonalities.
Crunching through meta-data like beats per minute, instrumentation, and song length, it can map the ‘musical genome’ with remarkable precision. It knows that Aphex Twin, Jon Hopkins, and Brian Eno share a common textural DNA that Kraftwerk, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream do not.
Where critics might argue that labels are confining and irrelevant in art, here the label is just a convenience. What matters is what it represents: an intricate mapping of influences and attributes.
That’s how an algorithm knows that Portishead is not, and never was, “Indie.”
Beyond Music: Extending Microgenres Across Media
As AI’s ever-expanding root system extends across new media landscapes, we can expect this deep understanding of taste to go beyond music.
Consider TV and film. Many catch-up platforms and streaming services still organise content using blunt, outdated categories: Drama, Comedy, Documentary, Sport. It’s a system not unlike those seven music genres from the 90s. But AI has the potential to redefine this.
It could parse everything from the narrative arc to the colour palette, the pacing of dialogue to the emotional resonance to group content by subtler, more meaningful classifications. Take, for example, the unofficial genre “Sad Man in Space.” Initially a tongue-in-cheek reference to a recurring sci-fi trope, it encompasses films like Ad Astra, Moon, Spaceman, First Man, Interstellar, and even classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris.
AI could soon auto-aggregate these films into a cohesive microgenre, ready for discovery.
The Feedback Loop: Microgenres as Creative Catalysts
Enhanced curation isn’t just a convenience for audiences lost in a universe of infinite content. It’s also a catalyst for creators. We’ve already seen this happen with TikTok. As users posted household cleaning tips, the #CleanTok exploded. This, in turn, encouraged more users to create content specifically to fit that niche, forming a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
Similarly, as microgenres emerge across media, creators may increasingly reverse-engineer content to fit these newly nuanced niches. Imagine YouTube creators fine-tuning their formats to hit algorithmically identified sweet spots, or filmmakers shaping their narratives to satisfy emerging subgenres.
When smart curation identifies untapped audiences, some microgenres won’t just stay niche. They’ll “speciate” into mainstream genres. In biology, speciation is the process by which a new species splits from its progenitor and evolves independently. In media, microgenres are doing the same: evolving from niche curiosities into dominant cultural phenomena.
Implications for Brands: Tapping into Microgenre Mindsets
For brands, the implications are profound. While there’s still immense value in targeting moments of shared cultural significance, for instance the Superbowl, microgenres open up new opportunities to connect with defined and engaged tribes.
Rigid, broad categories will always have their place in marketing. But microgenres allow brands to speak more directly to specific communities, reflecting the tropes and aesthetics of their niche to establish relevance and build resonance. This is better than personalisation — it’s a shift towards cultural fluency, where brands align themselves with the language, codes, and emotional triggers of microgenre audiences.
The Next Frontier: Microgenres as Marketing Blueprints
As AI continues to reshape the way we discover, consume, and create content, brands that embrace microgenres will gain a competitive edge. Those that can decode these granular classifications and speak authentically to emerging tribes will find themselves building not just engagement, but lasting cultural resonance. In a world where AI is carving out increasingly nuanced niches, finding your tribe is no longer a matter of luck – it’s a matter of design. And for brands willing to embrace this complexity, the rewards could be exponential.
