Commercial radio uses fade points set in their automation system for each song.

Every song you hear on commercial radio has had a human being (probably located in the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan area, but sometimes someone who actually lives in the city you’re in) listen and select “in” and “out” points.

Newer stations do in fact use AI to analyze two elements that run together and select the perfect place to start and end the fade along with how fast the elements need to transition. It sounds amazing.

http://www.superhifi.com/

This is the service. You can hear it in action on Sonos and Peloton’s streaming channels or iHeart’s streaming only selection, plus other places.

Doing this well is a lot harder than you likely assume, especially when you add in elements like station identification or a DJ speaking on top. The fade point method doesn’t require AI, but doing it at the level of a human running a mixing console does.

Notably, like Neil Young, they aren’t in use on Spotify.