Category: Artificial intelligence
Creative AI may be the most disruptive technology for the music business since the Napster era of piracy, forcing us to rethink traditional industry notions of creativity, ownership, attribution, and skill development in real time.
We are studying how creative AI impacts every step of the industry life cycle — from the initial steps of creation and ideation, to marketing, communication, distribution, and monetization.

For many music companies, AI “ethics” may be more about strategy and image than about genuine ethical practice.

On September 13, 2023, Stability AI launched their text-to-audio generation tool Stable Audio, the latest addition to a rapidly accelerating wave of development around music AI this year.

There’s never been a more fruitful time to build in music AI.

Sony Computer Science Laboratories has been quietly experimenting with creative AI tools for over 35 years. Crucially, they are also one of the only music AI research groups that already has a direct collaborative relationship with a major label.

TuneCore has become one of the most vocal music-industry stakeholders when it comes to AI, taking a stance that is equal parts proactive and cautious.

It’s as much about distribution as it is about creation.

Recent AI advances have caused equal parts excitement and existential fear, as artists grapple with the implications of an increasingly automated future.

“I think we need to move beyond recordings. We have to express the model itself.”

Jessica is the cofounder/CEO of AudioShake, a music startup that uses AI to break down songs into separate stems. They’ve raised several million dollars in funding, most recently led by celebrity investors like Metallica and Miley Cyrus.

Compared to tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney, music-making AI is behind the curve. But what’s coming next? And how can these tools help producers?

Is there a chance to creatively and ethically leverage the power of this technology to further our work? Here’s a framework to make it happen.

The more we delve into music AI software beyond the major DAWs, the more we feel the silent hand of the “time-to-fun” metric at work.