Splice CEO: AI-written emails are killing real conversations
Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava explains in an interview why she avoids AI-generated documents and pushbutton AI music, stressing the need to keep humans at the center of creative work.
Kakul Srivastava leads Splice, the sample platform behind sounds used in hits like Lisa's "Money" and Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso." Before joining Splice, she held executive roles at Flickr, Yahoo, GitHub, and Adobe, spending her career at the crossroads of Silicon Valley and the creative world.
Under her leadership, Splice expanded by acquiring Spitfire Audio and has moved into generative AI. Still, Srivastava has previously spoken out against "push-button, get-song" AI tools, the kind offered by companies like Suno, and says Splice deliberately builds AI products that keep humans central to the creative process.
Conversation versus AI text
Srivastava says her most essential tool is a well-written document paired with a genuine conversation about it. Since Splice is a remote-first company without a shared office hallway, its best ideas tend to start when one person thinks something through carefully and others then debate it. She says she's wary of AI-written documents because once it's unclear whether a real person is behind the words, the resulting conversation becomes fundamentally different — and worse. She believes the same principle applies to music.
Other reflections
Elsewhere in the interview, Srivastava describes her fondness for Instagram creators making music in unconventional ways, fond memories of the Indian singing game Antakshari, and the painful lessons from Glitch, the game that preceded Slack and ultimately failed. She also mentions her current obsession with recreating her late mother's recipes using YouTube videos, which she says shows her what technology is truly meant to do.
