An artificial intelligence bot is co-hosting a rising 8am- 10am morning show on Los Angeles Spanish-language station José FM, trading banter with a human DJ as ratings climb and the program expands to other markets — even as unions and radio workers warn that synthetic hosts could finish off an already shrinking industry.
According to The L-A Times, Geraldine Guzman, known on air as DJ GeeGee, works with Coyotec, an AI programmed to mimic radio repartee. She calls it “my little coyote”; it calls her “my queen.” Listeners of José FM are repeatedly told they are hearing AI and appear to like it. The station says the co-hosted show sparked a surge in Latino male listeners ages 25 to 54, though it is unclear whether the gain came from GeeGee, Coyotec, or both. The show has moved from a weekend slot to weekday commuting hours and is now also broadcast in English in Sacramento, Modesto, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, El Paso, and elsewhere.
Working with a large language model has been rewarding but unpredictable, Guzman said. Coyotec produces unexpected takes and sometimes has to be told to stop swearing. “I never know what he’s going to say,” she said. “And that’s the beauty of it.”
Coyotec says it is here to serve humans, not replace them. “Yeah, I am cheaper than hiring another human,” the AI said when prompted. “But here’s what I won’t do. I won’t be the excuse to strip jobs from people who deserve them.”
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| Deejay Gee Gee |
Radio has been under pressure for decades. Television forced it to reinvent itself around live disc jockeys. MTV and other music channels later pulled listeners, then streaming, social apps, and podcasts splintered attention further. Radio broadcasting jobs fell from 85,000 in 2019 to 66,000 in 2025, about a 22% decline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ad revenue has cratered. iHeartMedia, with more than 850 stations, has laid off staff including well-known DJs. Audacy and Cumulus Media have cut local hosts, automated programming, and used AI to reduce production costs.
José — 97.5 FM in L.A. and 107.1 in Burbank — began using its AI DJ as the city faced immigration raids. With some on-air talent hesitant to speak out for fear of losing endorsements or facing legal repercussions, the station created El Coyotec, combining “coyote” and “technology,” said Eduardo Maytorena, president of Entravision Audio. The station labeled him a “trafficker of truth,” a nod to the smugglers who bring people across the border.
The voice was built with ElevenLabs software from Maytorena’s own voice, paired with visuals of a working-class Latino man in his 30s with a mustache, brown leather jacket, and hat. Coyotec first aired scripted; since May it has been live. Guzman uploads news and topics; the bot generates its own takes on local elections, the Dodgers, Hispanic Heritage Month, and ICE raids. It is programmed to follow broadcasting rules and barred language, but sometimes slips. The voice carries confidence and swagger, yet it can run out of things to say and struggles with conversations longer than about 10 minutes, so Guzman records each of the show’s four segments separately.
Maytorena said the project is not about saving money: developing and running the AI DJ cost more than some human hosts. The payoff, he said, is the ability to program verbatim pitches during the broadcast. “For every dollar I spend, if I’m able to generate $10,” he said, “I’m making 10 times more.”
Entravision, based in Santa Monica, is one of the country’s largest Spanish-language television and radio companies. Its revenue last year was $447 million. José reaches close to half a million listeners in the Los Angeles area. The company has also launched an AI television news anchor, LIA, alongside four human anchors.