At a glance
| Sector | Music licensing & intellectual property (collecting society) |
| Members | 100,000+ members; ~2 million professional music consumers |
| 2024 revenue | €1.33 billion |
| AI assistant | “Melody” (public website + member portal) |
| Deployments | Member/customer chatbot, internal knowledge bot (Confluence/SharePoint), API ticket-drafting |
| Annual cost avoidance | Estimated €182K–211K |
| Answer grounding | Citation-backed, source-restricted, no-code deployment |
| Security | SOC 2 Type II and GDPR complian |
About GEMA
GEMA operates in the music licensing and intellectual property sector, representing over 100,000 members and approximately 2 million professional music consumers. In 2024 alone, GEMA generated €1.33 billion in revenue. As a membership-based organization, GEMA ensures that composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive fair remuneration for public use of their work.
The organization has a strategic focus on improving information accessibility, scaling member services, and modernizing internal workflows. Positioned as a global leader among collecting societies, GEMA is responding to increasing digitalization and service expectations from its growing member base.
What challenge did GEMA face?
GEMA faced structural challenges relating to multiple use cases from members and customers, despite having a comprehensive help site. The volume of service requests placed pressure on support teams and revealed that many inquiries still required personal intervention. Internally, employees struggled to retrieve information quickly due to a fragmented system landscape involving multiple documentation and knowledge platforms like Confluence and SharePoint.
These challenges were exacerbated by complex service documentation and rising expectations for real-time support. Members and customers often needed immediate, 24/7 access to accurate information, which the traditional support infrastructure could not consistently provide.
How did GEMA solve it with CustomGPT.ai?
To address these challenges, GEMA implemented CustomGPT.ai across three strategic dimensions:
- Member & customer support: GEMA launched “Melody,” a 24/7 digital assistant embedded on its public website and member portal. Melody provides immediate, contextual support for licensing, registration, and rights-related inquiries, reducing wait times and improving member and customer experience.
- Internal knowledge access: GEMA integrated CustomGPT.ai with knowledge repositories like Confluence so employees can access relevant information within seconds, streamlining workflows and reducing inefficiencies.
- Service-process automation: Through API integration, CustomGPT.ai was embedded into service processes to automatically draft responses for specific use cases and accelerate ticket handling.
The implementation was executed using an agile collaboration model with iterative feedback from GEMA’s team. A key differentiator was the ability to customize and securely deploy internal-facing bots using a private front-end. Combined with CustomGPT.ai’s citation-backed accuracy and no-code deployment, this resulted in rapid adoption and measurable efficiency gains across the organization.
What results did GEMA achieve?
- 248,000+ inquiries answered via chatbots (external and internal)
- 6,000+ working hours saved, equivalent to freeing up ~3 FTEs
- 88% query success rate, exceeding the 70% industry benchmark
- Estimated €182K–€211K in annual cost avoidance
- Consistent positive feedback from both users and employees
- Improved internal satisfaction: employees report significantly faster access to information
Qualitative impact: enhanced member and customer experience with 24/7 guidance; reduced service-team pressure; improved service-ticket handling through AI-generated suggestions for specific use cases.
| Metric | Before CustomGPT.ai | After CustomGPT.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Member support availability | Staffed hours only | 24/7 via “Melody” |
| Queries resolved automatically | 0 | 248,000+ |
| Query success rate | Variable | 88% (vs. 70% benchmark) |
| Internal knowledge retrieval | Slow, fragmented (Confluence/SharePoint) | Instant |
| Working hours saved | 0 | 6,000+ (≈3 FTEs) |
| Annual cost avoidance | €0 | Estimated €182K–211K |
| Answer grounding | n/a | Source-grounded, citation-backed |
| Engineering cost | Dev resources required | Zero — no-code |
Why it Worked
- Strategic fit: aligned with GEMA’s goal to digitize and scale service.
- Speed: seamless deployment across internal and external channels.
- Accuracy: anti-hallucination, contextual understanding, citations.
- Partnership: agile co-creation, responsive support from the CustomGPT team — regular check-ins, mutual roadmap alignment, and technical support enabled a seamless rollout. GEMA valued how CustomGPT.ai adapted to their content ecosystem, feedback cycles, and operational complexity, elevating the engagement into a true innovation partnership.
Conclusion
CustomGPT.ai enabled GEMA to redefine support delivery for both members and staff. What began as a chatbot pilot has evolved into an AI-driven service infrastructure that is transforming how knowledge is accessed and delivered. As GEMA continues to scale, new projects — including document analysis, email automation, and licensing advisors — are underway, with CustomGPT.ai at the center of this intelligent transformation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CustomGPT.ai?
CustomGPT.ai is an AI knowledge infrastructure platform that lets organizations deploy AI trained on their own documentation, delivering source-cited answers restricted to approved content across customer-facing and internal channels.
What is AI knowledge infrastructure?
AI knowledge infrastructure is a system that enables organizations to answer questions automatically using their own internal data, replacing manual support queues, static FAQs, and keyword search with AI that delivers instant, accurate, source-grounded responses at scale.
What did GEMA deploy?
Three systems: a 24/7 public AI assistant named “Melody” on its website and member portal; an internal knowledge AI integrated with Confluence and SharePoint; and an API-connected tool that auto-drafts service ticket responses. All three operate with outputs restricted to verified GEMA documentation.
How did the AI save 6,000 working hours?
By automatically resolving 248,000+ inquiries that staff previously handled manually. In GEMA’s deployment, that translated to approximately 3 FTEs redirected from repetitive query handling to higher-value work, annually.
What does an 88% query success rate mean?
88% of all queries submitted in GEMA’s deployment were resolved by AI without human escalation. The industry benchmark is 70%. Closing that 18-point gap means fewer manual interventions, lower cost per resolution, and measurably higher ROI.
Why use CustomGPT.ai instead of ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini?
General-purpose models are designed for broad use and draw on wide internet training data. CustomGPT.ai is designed for organizational knowledge specifically, answering only from content you have approved, with source-restricted outputs, SOC2 Type 2 and GDPR compliance, and full organizational control over what the AI communicates.
What is “Melody”?
Melody is GEMA’s branded AI assistant, a custom persona built on CustomGPT.ai and calibrated for GEMA’s licensing domain, member tone, and organizational voice. It operates 24/7 across the public website and member portal.
How does CustomGPT.ai ensure answer accuracy?
The anti-hallucination engine restricts every response to documentation the organization has uploaded and approved. General knowledge generation is architecturally disabled, and every answer is source-cited and traceable.
Is CustomGPT.ai compliant for regulated industries?
Yes. SOC2 Type 2 and GDPR compliant, and designed for regulated deployments across nonprofit, legal, financial, and government sectors.
How quickly can an organization deploy CustomGPT.ai?
Days, not months, with no developer required. Start your free 7-day trial.
What is GEMA expanding into next?
Document analysis, email automation, and AI-powered licensing advisors, extending the model from customer-facing support into broader operational workflows.
What ROI can membership organizations expect?
In GEMA’s deployment: €182K-211K in annual cost avoidance, 6,000+ hours saved, and 248,000+ queries resolved, with no engineering cost and no new hires.
Can AI replace member services staff?
No. AI handles high-volume, repeatable inquiries. Staff handle complex cases, escalations, and situations requiring judgment. In GEMA’s deployment, the team became more effective, not smaller.
How do organizations scale support without hiring?
By deploying AI trained on their own verified knowledge. In GEMA’s deployment, CustomGPT.ai handled 248,000+ queries annually, saving 6,000 hours and €182K-211K, with no new hires and no engineering investment.
