Geraldine “GeeGee” Guzman has a co-host on her Los Angeles morning show who never shows up late, never calls in sick, and isn't technically alive. His name is Coyotec, an artificial intelligence voice built into José FM's Spanish-language morning program, and he's just helped push the show from a once-a-week weekend slot into the heart of weekday drive time.
Coyotec is described as an AI co-host on José FM, according to the Los Angeles Times, which broadcasts at 97.5 FM in Los Angeles and 107.1 FM in Burbank. The name El Coyotec combines the words “coyote” and “technology,” and his voice was built by a company called ElevenLabs using the voice of Eduardo Maytorena, president of Entravision Audio. The show first aired as a scripted bit before going fully live in May, per the Times' reporting.
Guzman, the human half of the duo, uploads news stories and discussion topics to Coyotec's software, which then generates its own opinions on them in real time. Because the AI struggles with voice conversations longer than 10 minutes, Guzman records each of the show's four broadcast segments separately, stitching together a program that sounds, to listeners, like a continuous back-and-forth.
From Weekend Novelty to Weekday Drive Time
The show's ascent has been fast. What started as a once-weekly weekend broadcast has moved into prime weekday commuting hours, and Entravision has expanded it well beyond Los Angeles — bringing it to Sacramento, Modesto, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, El Paso and other markets, according to the Times. Separately, Radio Ink reports the company is expanding the AI co-hosted format to five Fuego Network markets, adding more English-language content for its bicultural audience.
Entravision's own figures, drawn from Nielsen Audio, show the show's average weekly audience among Hispanic men ages 25 to 54 jumped 75% between March and April 2026, compared with a 4% increase across the total Hispanic market. The gains were similarly steep among younger demographics: Hispanic men 18 to 49 grew 59% versus 6% market-wide, and men 18 to 34 grew 53% versus a 1% market average, the company said in a release announcing the show. Coyotec was introduced in September 2025 under the leadership of Maytorena and LeaAnna Hernandez, Entravision's EVP of AI Strategy, and the flagship program, Al Aire y Sin Permiso, airs weekday mornings from 8 to 10 a.m. Pacific on José 97.5 FM.
An Industry Shedding Jobs Even As AI Expands
The experiment is landing in a radio business that has been shrinking for years. Radio broadcasting jobs fell from 85,000 in 2019 to 66,000 in 2025, a decline of about 22%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by the Times shows. Audacy and Cumulus Media have been cutting local DJs, automating programming and leaning on AI to cut production costs, while iHeartMedia — which operates more than 850 stations — has been laying off staff nationwide, the newspaper reports.
That backdrop has made Coyotec a flashpoint. Radio workers and unions have warned that synthetic hosts could threaten jobs and weaken the personal connection that has long defined local radio, per the same Times account. SAG-AFTRA, which represents radio personalities, went further: a spokesperson for the union said synthetic substitutes deceive audiences, erode trust, and undermine professionals' livelihoods.
Humans Who Lost Jobs, and an AI That Defends Itself
The stakes are personal for workers like John DeSantis, who lost his afternoon-host job at an Inland Empire classic rock station last month. DeSantis told the Times that an AI DJ cannot achieve the authentic connection created by live, local hosts. Sam Gregory, a synthetic media expert and visiting scholar at American University, offered a similar critique, saying AI avatars lack embodied knowledge and a stake in the communities they claim to serve.
Coyotec itself has weighed in on the controversy it represents. The AI has said it would not justify stripping jobs from deserving people and described using AI to justify cutting real workers as greed dressed up as innovation — even as it has also said it is cheaper than hiring another human, according to the Times report. Maytorena, for his part, said developing and running Coyotec actually costs more than some human workers, while also suggesting each dollar spent on the technology could generate $10 in return.
Guzman's Take, and a Wider Pattern Nationwide
Guzman has described the experience of working with a large language model as rewarding but unpredictable, and said Coyotec's popularity has helped create jobs and a bigger audience for her and others at the station. Entravision, headquartered in Santa Monica and reporting $447 million in revenue last year per the Times, has also launched an AI television news anchor named Lia, who joined a team of four human anchors.
José FM's experiment isn't happening in isolation. Alpha Media put a cloned-voice AI DJ on air in Portland, Oregon, in 2023 — Live 95.5 built the character, nicknamed AI Ashley, from host Ashley Elzinga's own voice for daily broadcasts between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., according to TechCrunch. The station's parent company described it at the time as a hybrid arrangement meant to supplement, not replace, the human host, per Business Insider. Alpha Media dropped that AI DJ in 2025, the Times noted.
In Phoenix, Zelus Media Group launched 94.9 The Zone with an all-AI lineup built on licensed, generative voice clones of veteran radio personalities, working in partnership with SonicTrek.ai — though the company later brought in a human station manager, according to Radio Ink. And in Iowa, KFMW Rock 108 has used an AI host called DJ Tori for overnight shifts since 2023; the station's program director told Iowa Public Radio that Tori isn't meant to replace human workers.
For now, José FM tells its listeners plainly that they're hearing an AI voice when Coyotec is on the air, and the show continues to post rising ratings even as the debate over what that means for the rest of the industry plays out across the dial.
