In the Flow of Sound

Few tools have supported our editorial process quite like Endel. Its adaptive soundscapes have become the quiet backbone of many late-night writing sessions behind this magazine. After years of experimenting with background music, from Chopin to Coldplay, rock to electronic – nothing has proven more effective for focus and calm.

For Oleg Stavitsky, co-founder and CEO of Endel, sound is not entertainment – it’s a tool. Since its launch six years ago, the Berlin-based company has been exploring how adaptive, generative audio can help regulate the nervous system, improve focus, enhance sleep, and restore calm. The idea may sound poetic, but it’s deeply scientific, grounded in neuroscience, physiology, and research on cognitive states such as flow.

Oleg Stavitsky, Co-founder and CEO of Endel.

In this conversation, Stavitsky explains why silence often underperforms compared to carefully designed soundscapes, how Endel collaborates with leading European universities, and why he believes the cultural shift toward sound as a tool for well-being is only just beginning.

Endel is often described as functional sound rather than music. What’s the difference, and why is it essential to Endel’s DNA?

The key difference is intent and listening mode. What we create are soundscapes designed not for conscious, entertainment-style listening. We don’t even call it “music.” It’s functional audio intended to guide you into a specific cognitive state – calm, focus, sleep – rather than something you sit and “listen to” like a record.

It’s not there to entertain; it’s there to help your brain.

Flow by Mihaly Robert Csíkszentmihályi shaped Endel’s scientific framing early on. How have you expanded that foundation, and what methods or research guide your work today?

We keep evolving our neuroscientific frameworks – plural, because focus, sleep, and relaxation each require a different approach. We read widely across new white papers, but the field is still under-researched. So we also participate in studies. Right now we’re part of Lullabyte, a five-year EU-funded project with major European universities. Endel is the only tech company involved, studying the effects of sound and music on sleep, especially the wind-down period a couple of hours before bed.

We also experiment based on strong anecdotal evidence where hard science is limited. For example, we added a pure noise soundscape that lets people mix different colored noises and a pure intonation/frequency soundscape blended with light musical elements. Both launch with clear disclaimers that they’re not yet scientifically validated, but many users, especially those with ADHD, report benefits.

Traditional songs have a beginning, chorus, and end. Endel’s soundscapes are adaptive and effectively endless. Why does that help with focus?

We ran a study comparing brainwaves during a typical streaming focus playlist versus Endel’s adaptive, endless, personalized soundscapes. With songs, sustained attention tends to rise, peak, and drop with each track – your brain resets and analyzes the next composition. Endel brings you into “the zone” and keeps you there. The soundscape changes subtly, ideally below conscious notice, so you don’t burn attention on musical structure. For focus, steady beats at certain BPM ranges work best and should evolve slowly to avoid attention fatigue, but you don’t want choruses or dramatic sections that make your brain “think it’s music.”

How do you balance art and science behind the scenes?

We’re a collective with a flat hierarchy: a product team defines how sound should react; a sound team maps sounds to inputs; and a core tech team makes it all work. Everyone’s obsessed with sound, so feedback crosses roles. It’s not just a company—it’s a group united by a shared mission.

You’ve described yourself as a “music geek”. Was there a moment before Endel when sound truly put you in flow, and does living in Berlin’s vibrant ambient and club scene still inspire that feeling today?

Absolutely. I’ve long worked to ambient music – Brian Eno, for example, but those records always end; you have to flip the vinyl or start a new one. A real turning point was when the first iPad came out and I downloaded Eno’s Bloom app. It was an interactive soundscape you could tweak in real time, and I was mesmerized, so was my three-year-old daughter. That’s when I knew this was what I wanted to build. And yes, living in Berlin fuels that same energy. The city’s music and culture scene is a huge part of why I’m here; I’m connected to both the ambient and dance communities.

Any upcoming releases or collaborations you can share?

Yes, a soundscape for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is out now. It looks at your natural light exposure and movement to estimate a SAD score, then adapts the soundscape accordingly. There’s strong evidence that reduced natural light negatively affects mood; sound can help alleviate that.

Beyond making new content, how do you see Endel’s role in educating people about art, sound, and health?

Early on, we spent years just educating users on how to use Endel. Now, rather than pumping out more soundscapes – we have plenty, and they’re long-lived because they’re adaptive – we’re building features and tools that help people integrate sound into daily routines.

More broadly, there’s already so much art in the world. The opportunity is to build infrastructure that helps people weave it into life.

Endel’s interface feels artistic and intentionally non-gamified: minimal, even mysterious. How did you have the courage to ship that?

It’s simply who we are. Our art director Protey Temen is an established artist, and that sensibility is in the product. The early abstraction – black-and-white, minimal, a bit enigmatic – was intentional. Over time we’ve made it more accessible because some users were unsure how to use it, but the core aesthetic remains authentic to us.

Endel’s adaptive soundscapes across devices — from mobile and tablet to Apple Watch, Apple TV, and spatial computing — designed to support focus, relaxation, and sleep anywhere.

What’s your view on silence? Do you ever prefer it, or is a crafted soundscape always better?

Silence is beautiful – John Cage proved that – but complete silence is rare and can feel unnatural. For meditation or contemplation, silence makes sense. But for work, concentration, or sleep, an intentional soundscape tends to be better than ambient, uncontrollable noise. Multiple studies indicate that silence underperforms compared to well-designed sound for those goals.

*Side note: When Oleg references John Cage, he’s nodding to the avant-garde composer’s 1952 piece 4’33”, where the performer sits at a piano and plays nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The “music” becomes the accidental sounds of the room — breathing, rustling, distant traffic. Cage’s point: there is no such thing as true silence, only our awareness of sound. It’s a lineage Endel extends through technology, turning environmental listening into a new form of mindful experience.