Using AI Skills to Innovate his Music Career: Ippolito’s Journey with WBS CODING SCHOOL

Ippolito Ricca is a WBS CODING SCHOOL graduate who enhanced his career in music and entertainment by adding AI expertise to his toolkit. Since completing WBS CODING SCHOOL's AI for Business Bootcamp in 2025, Ippolito has leveraged his new skills to consult music tech software companies at the intersection of management, AI, and automations. We'll hear about what inspired him to add AI training to his diverse skill set, his bootcamp experience, and how he's applying AI ethically to drive innovation in the creative industries.

You have a diverse background in music and entertainment management. What were you up to before the AI for Business Bootcamp?

I worked for a YouTube partner company, managing YouTube channels and copyrights for legacy artists. These legacy artists were around from the 1960s up until the 2000s. We were looking for their performances in databases from the BBC, ZDF, and other TV stations or festivals, publishing them on their YouTube channels to grow them, and attaching copyrights to them, using YouTube’s content management system.

What motivated you to change careers and take the AI for Business Bootcamp at WBS CODING SCHOOL?

We closed the Berlin office because YouTube went down after the pandemic was over. I was looking for ways to change industries, even though I was also working as a stage manager, a digital marketer, and other jobs as a freelancer. AI was at its peak of innovation, so I wanted to understand how AI worked and how to use it in my career.

There are a lot of coding bootcamps online, based in Germany and around Europe. What specifically stood out about WBS CODING SCHOOL when you were looking?

It was the first bootcamp to propose a course about AI, but for business, not for coding or other technical skills. I liked the structure of the course. Plus, the fact that it was short was a two-month bootcamp, because I was applying with a Bildungsgutschein from the unemployment agency in Germany, the alternatives were all very long courses, which meant I would have been done with the course and not have had enough time to look for a job before my unemployment was over.

So you join this bootcamp. Can you walk us through a typical week during the eight-week program?

Every morning, we focused on new topics through the lessons the teachers gave. Instruction was interactive, so once every 15 minutes, we had a quiz to prove what we had just learned. Then, in the second half of the afternoon, we focused on individual and team projects.

How many hours a week were you dedicating to the bootcamp?

At full-time, it was from 9am until 5pm. When I was excited about the topic, I would be motivated to do additional research afterwards. There was extra work, but I took it as personal development work. The program did not require it.

You mentioned doing things outside of the curriculum. What were your instructors like at WBS CODING SCHOOL?

They were positive, helpful, and understanding. They were listening, open to feedback, and also well prepared. I was surprised because they had already done thorough research, even in the infancy of AI applications. Even the non-technical instructors were highly knowledgeable. If something was outside their knowledge, they would research and get back to us within hours or days on specific questions.

How did the practical hands-on approach of this bootcamp differ from other educational experiences you've had?

The fact that it was hands-on and curated meant that there was care for students to do a good job in their projects and stay on the right track. So instructors checked in with us each afternoon individually to see if we were doing the right thing. The instructors took care of the success of the whole group.

The program covered everything from AI fundamentals to the legal aspects of AI. Which module or topic surprised you the most or challenged your existing assumptions about AI?

At the beginning of the course, we covered the fundamentals, which means understanding how AI works technically from a development point of view. Then we learned how different algorithms and models work and how they are set up. It was beneficial for me then to go into an AI tool, read some news, and understand the mix of technical tools and algorithms they use.

Can you tell us about your final capstone project?

The focus of my team’s final project was on water scarcity. Together with my teammates, we developed a custom GPT, a prototype for the long-term vision of a proper database. Today, this would be called a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system, which is a database that has unstructured data, but then AI can pick what it needs and answer. 

We created a database on agricultural policies in the Mediterranean. The point was to impact how politics could use AI without being biased and without using too much rhetoric around data. It's strictly fact-based policy-making. We used all the academic papers, tables, structured and unstructured data about the topic. We created a custom GPT and uploaded these documents to the knowledge base. Then we could prompt and ask a question, about “I'm a policymaker in a small town hall in south of Spain. I have X amount of vectors with this microclimate. What policies can I make to save water?”

The last step was creating a video about this custom GPT project. We used the Synthesia AI video tool to make the videos. We did a job that we thought would have taken a week and three people – we did it with two people in two to three days.

So what are you working on today, Ippolito? I mentioned that you work “at the intersection of management, AI, and automation.” Your career is at an intriguing intersection. So what are you working on today?

During the course, we had one lesson about APIs. I was not knowledgeable about IT or programming, so I used this tool called make.com, which creates automations between API codes. For years, I had an idea to connect different music tech tools for artists to be more efficient and managers to manage their careers. Many artists don't have a manager, and managers don't have multiple artists because they have too many cumbersome tasks. I teamed up with a developer friend, and we started this business to solve that problem. 

I developed the business plan with much knowledge from ChatGPT and all the research I needed to support the business plan. Then I built it entirely with ChatGPT and got public funding from the state. I did a whole business plan that got approved in a month.

I use custom GPTs for all my projects because then I can create a knowledge base and prompts to have answers based on the business I'm working on. The developer is doing a lot of vibe coding with the custom GPT. 

And I'm freelancing on different projects on the side. For example, booking venues for artists. For each artist, I have a custom GPT, and they gave me guidelines on the type of venues that they're looking for. With all these guidelines, for example, I receive a contract or a quote from a venue. 

I also freelance as a social media manager for a club here in Berlin. I had to do market research, look at competitors, and try to understand the average view count on the reviews of some competitors. Instead of doing it manually, I was asking GPT to create weighted averages so that I could then compare based on how many followers the page had and how many views, and then compare the profiles on the same benchmark. All this has been very useful.

In one class, WBS gave us a diagram of which AI tools to use for each business category, from design to hospitality to marketing. They gave me a Swiss knife of possibilities.

That sounds exciting and helpful, especially with how WBS CODING SCHOOL provided a diagram to help see the whole ecosystem and where AI can be beneficial. What's your advice for someone considering the AI for Business program at WBS CODING SCHOOL? How can they get the most out of the bootcamp?

Go online and look for books about the fundamentals of AI, including all the algorithms and AI models taught at the beginning of the course. They are complex, but since it was the second time I was going through these topics, I linked the class topic with what I had read a month before.

I suggest preparing properly because it's only two months. It's intensive, so if you don't want to spend the evening studying and trying to understand, I would suggest preparing before starting to use ChatGPT. Ask and look at the topics of the course, at the curriculum of the course, and start prompting ChatGPT on those topics so that you already have a base. 

During the course, don't be afraid to ask questions; really participate. We had a fantastic group; we were all participating. It really helped because the questions someone had were actually answering my questions, which I thought were different from his or hers. Participate! Because it's two months, it can go very fast, and the new knowledge accumulates daily.

I bought another book, which was more general about the whole history of AI and where it will go next. The one I read is The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil. He’s the godfather of AI, and he's an optimist. So he can also give you a different perspective from all the people who raise a lot of alarms over AI. AI is a tool that is here to stay and here to change a lot. AI can be used poorly, but also very well. If the people who do well and have good intentions become skilled and knowledgeable, they can counterbalance the other people who use it to create weapons or do bad in the world.

AI is not something that people should shy away from. Don't take that stance. You'll become just a dinosaur in history. Just jump on the boat and learn how to use it for your goals.

Excellent advice for how to get the most out of the bootcamp and AI in general. Final question – was WBS CODING SCHOOL worth it for you?

Absolutely. I really was skeptical. I have a lot of friends who also had courses, especially with the Bildungsgutschein. They spent way more money on longer courses that were more disappointing. I was initially skeptical about the price of the two-month bootcamp, but then I understood that the teachers were actually there, actively available, and hands-on for 8 hours per day.

The program was efficient; there was not one day when we repeated a topic. It was really engaging because there was always new information. There was no feeling of redundancy to buy time so that the course would last longer in an unjustifiable way.

That's wonderful. I'm so glad to hear that it was worth it for you. Thank you so much, Ippolito, for your time today. 

Find out more and read WBS CODING SCHOOL reviews on Course Report. This article was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with WBS CODING SCHOOL.