PORTSMOUTH, Va. — As debates over artificial intelligence and its impact on the entertainment industry persist, a local producer is embracing the technology by creating not just new music, but entirely virtual artists.

Anthony Brown, a Portsmouth-based music producer who has worked with the likes of Hurby Azor, Salt-N-Pepa and Teddy Riley, has launched two digital performers under the label Battle Music & Entertainment (BME). Their names: Amy Innocent and Andrew Ingram.

“We came up with the concept of developing these artists like Motown would develop artists,” Brown explained. "They used to make them look the way they want them to look, sing the way they wanted them to sing."

But Amy and Andrew aren’t real people. Everything, from their voices and faces to their movements, is generated

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