State Champ Radio AI
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Just because an AI-generated track makes— or even tops — a Billboard chart doesn’t mean it’s very popular.
Take, for example, Breaking Rust, an AI-assisted artist that attracted global attention for reaching No. 1 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart. Breaking Rust’s track “Walk My Walk” amassed approximately 3,000 track downloads in the week ending Nov. 6, according to Luminate. “Don’t Tread on Me” by Cain Walker, another AI-assisted country artist, is currently at No. 3 after selling approximately 2,000 downloads in that same week. That’s all it takes to top a genre download chart these days.
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The digital download is a relic of an era when iTunes ruled the music industry and streaming was in its infancy. Over the years, as consumers shifted to subscription streaming platforms, downloads have all but disappeared from the landscape. In 2024, downloads accounted for $329 million, according to the RIAA, approximately 2% of U.S. recorded music revenue. That’s down 86% from 2015, when downloads generated $2.3 billion and represented 34% of the U.S. market. Revenue from subscription streaming platforms, which now play a major role in the most well-known charts, climbed 860% to $11.7 billion over the same time span.
Pop songs put up much better numbers. As Billboard noted in an article on country executives’ reactions to Breaking Rust and Walker, the top track on the all-genre Digital Song Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” sold 29,000 copies. But even the most popular pop download doesn’t do the numbers seen just a decade ago. The No. 1 track in the same first week in November 2015, “Hello” by Adele, sold a whopping 636,000 units.
To put Breaking Rust and Walker’s popularity into a better context, it helps to know where they rank amongst their human peers. For the week ended Nov. 6, Breaking Rust was ranked No. 228 among country artists in terms of equivalent album units (EAUs, which combine streams and sales into a single metric). No. 1 country artist Morgan Wallen had 113 times more EAUs and 227 times more EAUs than Walker, who was No. 359. It would take 13 Breaking Rusts and 25 Walkers to equal the No. 18 artist, Bailey Zimmerman.
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The most successful AI artist is currently Xania Monet. Her creator, Telisha Jones, writes the lyrics and uses an AI platform to create the music. Monet has been on Billboard charts such as R&B Digital Song Sales, Hot Gospel Songs and Emerging Artists. But among artists of all genres, Monet ranked only No. 927 in terms of EAUs in the week ended Nov. 6, about equal to Cyndi Lauper and French Montana — artists who, unlike Monet, aren’t currently being promoted to terrestrial radio and attracting worldwide fascination.
To be sure, many human artists would love to have the sales and streaming numbers of these AI-assisted artists. Walker and Breaking Rust are No. 9 and No. 11, respectively, on the Emerging Artists chart, right behind country singer Alexandra Kay, who is signed to BMG-owned BBR Music Group and regularly sells out theaters around the country. In the U.S., Breaking Rust has 9.3 million streams to date, while Walker has 1 million, according to Luminate — the kind of numbers achieved by developing artists backed by record labels and artist managers.
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But the AI artists attracting headlines and creating consternation within the music industry don’t have popularity to match the attention they’re getting. They are making noise mainly by getting onto download charts, which don’t reflect how most Americans consume music. Nor are they likely to have the longevity of other artists. Walker, ranked No. 359 amongst country artists, is just a few spots below country legend Hank Williams. But nobody is saying that Walker matches the popularity of Williams, an inductee into the Country Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
That’s not to say AI artists aren’t having an impact. They’re quickly growing in numbers, and it’s not difficult to imagine that they could soon gobble up much more market share.
Take the 10 AI-generated or AI-assisted artists mentioned in Billboard’s Nov. 4 article about AI artists who landed on the charts. The 10 artists mentioned in that article — including Juno Skye, Enlly Blue, Unbound Music, Ruby Darkrose and ChildPets Galore — have an average EAU in 2025 of approximately 7,200 units. That’s not much. But 1,000 of these AI artists, in aggregate, could have a legitimate impact: 1,000 artists at 7,200 units is 7.2 million units — equal to a 0.7% year-to-date U.S. market share. That’s on par with large independent record labels like Big Machine Label Group (0.78%), BMG (0.77%) and Secretly Distribution (0.75%). Two thousand AI artists with an average of 3,600 AEUs would have the same collective market share. Or 4,000 AI artists with an average of 1,800 AEUs.
An invasion of AI music may feel like a dystopian future to most people, but it’s a plausible scenario. A person reading about Xania Monet or Breaking Rust could experience the same spark of inspiration felt by teenagers seeing punk rock bands in the mid to late ‘70s. Punk grew quickly because starting a band required a passion for music, not musical expertise. When millions of people read about AI artists on the charts, some of them will have the same realization that kids had in the ‘70s: “If they can do it, why can’t I?”
Billboard determines if a charting title is AI or AI-assisted through checking the artists’ official pages, some of which say they are generated with the help of AI; cross-checking the songs using Deezer’s AI detection tool, which adds a flag to all AI-generated content on the platform; and reaching out to the creators themselves, among other methods.
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French streaming service Deezer reported on Wednesday (Nov. 12) that roughly 50,000 songs delivered to the platform daily are now fully AI-generated, in what amounts to the company’s fourth report on the surge of AI-generated content on its service this year.
Along with that statistic, Deezer also released the findings of a new survey about AI’s use in the music industry, including the stat that 97% of people can’t tell the difference between human-made and fully AI-generated musical works.
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According to Deezer’s proprietary AI detection tool — which only searches for fully AI-generated songs from select popular models, including Suno and Udio — the number of fully AI-generated songs delivered daily has been rapidly increasing throughout 2025. In January, it reported that the figure was 10,000 songs a day; in April, it noted the figure was 20,000 songs daily; and in September, it reported the number had risen to 30,000 songs daily.
In an interview with Billboard about the company’s AI research in May, Aurelien Herault, Deezer’s chief innovation officer, and Manuel Moussallam, its director of research, said that part of the reason why they were finding a growing number of fully-AI generated songs was simply that their “data got better” — as well as the fact that the overall volume of fully AI-generated songs had increased as more users adopted AI tools like Suno and Udio.
Beyond flagging AI use, Deezer has taken a proactive approach to regulating this content on its platform. To create transparency, Deezer adds a tag to any fully AI-generated work it detects on the platform, while removing it from algorithmic and editorial recommendations and playlists.
To continue its research into the emerging technology and its impact on the music business, Deezer also produced a new survey on the perceptions and attitudes around AI music. The study was executed by Ipsos with a total of 9,000 participants across eight countries — the United States, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan. Below, you can check out the study’s top findings.
General perceptions about AI:
98% have at least heard of AI
72% used AI at least a few times
55% of the respondents place curiosity as one of their first overall sentiments towards AI
19% place trust among their first feelings towards this new tool
Music discovery creation with AI:
46% think that AI can help them discover more music they like
51% think that AI will play a significant part in music creation in the next 10 years
51% think that AI will lead to the creation of more low-quality, generic-sounding music on streaming platforms
64% believe that AI could lead to a loss of creativity in music production
Recognition and consumption of AI-generated music:
97% couldn’t tell the difference between fully AI-generated music and human-made music in a blind test with two AI songs and one real song
52% felt uncomfortable with not being able to tell the difference between AI and human-made music
66% of music streaming users say they would listen to 100% AI-generated music at least once, out of curiosity
45% of music streaming users would like to filter out 100% AI-generated music from their music streaming platform
40% of music streaming users say that they would skip without listening to 100% AI-music if they came across it
Transparency:
80% agree that 100% AI-generated music should be clearly labeled to listeners
73% of music streaming users would like to know if a music streaming service is recommending 100% AI-generated music
52% of respondents feel that 100% AI-generated songs should not be included in charts alongside human-made songs on the main charts
Only 11% believe that 100% AI-generated music should be treated equally on charts
58% of music streaming users believe that their music streaming platform never recommended 100% AI-generated music to them, while 25% are uncertain
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As artificial intelligence moves further into the music space, how concerned should the country community, which has built its reputation on authenticity and a trusted connection between artists and fans, be?
One-third of the top 10 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart dated Nov. 15 is composed of AI-assisted artists, including “Walk My Walk,” attributed to Breaking Rust, which spends its second week at No. 1; Cain Walker’s “Don’t Tread on Me” which stands at No. 3; and Walker’s “Ain’t My Problem,” which debuted at No. 9. (Walker’s “Freedom” also debuted on the 15-position chart at No. 11).
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“Walk My Walk,” which is spending its second week at No. 1, has a gospel, stomping feel, while Walker’s tunes are more dark country rock. All three share similar “stand my ground, don’t mess with me”-type lyrics with boisterous vocals.
The songs are selling relatively small numbers: Breaking Rust’s “Walk My Walk” sold more than 2,000 copies in the U.S. for the tracking week ending Nov. 6, according to Luminate, while Walker’s “Don’t Tread on Me” sold more than 1,000 copies, and his “Ain’t My Problem” sold slightly under 1,000. By comparison, the top-selling song on Billboard‘s all-genre Digital Song Sales chart for the week ending Nov. 6, Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” sold 29,000 copies.
“It’s a notable wake-up call but not yet an existential threat — more like a symptom of broader disruptions in how music is created, distributed and consumed,” says FEMco founder Leslie Fram. “In country, where authenticity and storytelling are core, this could erode trust if fans feel manipulated, but it’s mostly confined to sales charts so far, not airplay or streaming staples.”
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Yet. But AI has already spread to another genre’s airplay chart: Xania Monet, who signed to Hallwood Media after bidding offers reached $3 million, became the first known AI artist to earn enough radio airplay to rank on a Billboard radio chart when she debuted at No. 30 on the Adult R&B Airplay chart dated Nov. 11. Several other AI or AI-assisted acts have also debuted on Billboard charts in recent weeks, including Childpets Galore on Christian Digital Song Sales, Unbound Music and Emily Blue on Rock Digital Song Sales, and contemporary Christian artist Juno Skye on the Emerging Artists chart.
Terrestrial country radio stations have not yet added Breaking Rust or Cain Walker to their rotations, and country radio consultant Joel Raab says that’s wise. “Listeners react negatively to the idea of AI voices on their stations,” Raab says, citing research done on the question of AI use in general. “Listeners don’t like the idea of AI voices, so by association, I don’t think they’d like the music.”
Furthermore, other than playing the songs for curiosity value, “leaning on that type of programming consistently seems very shortsighted considering radio makes money off of touring advertising and other artist-driven revenue,” says F2 Entertainment Group president/CEO Fletcher Foster, who manages MORIAH and other artists.
Fram agrees. “[Country] stations prioritize ‘real’ voices tied to tours and endorsements, so Breaking Rust might need active promo (e.g., fake ‘artist’ interviews or tie-ins) to cross over,” she says. ”It’s going to be a real conversation for gatekeepers. If [the song] hooks listeners, they may want to play it — radio’s job is curation, not purity tests.”
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For real artists and their managers, though, the AI disruption could potentially make a difficult job even harder. “The artist development process has never been easy. Over the past few years, especially since COVID and the massive switch to DSPs, it has never been more challenging,” Fletcher says. “It’s incredibly detrimental to have AI-generated songs taking up precious spots on the chart because not only do they clog up the chart, but they take positions away from a well-rounded artist that can have a career generating revenue and publishing, touring, brand partnerships, etc.”
Some labels are embracing AI. Last month, Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a deal with Udio that settled UMG’s involvement in a lawsuit it had filed last year against the AI music startup, along with Sony and Warner — and paved the way for a version of Udio that would create a new commercial consumption and streaming experience that would pay participating UMG artists for lending their work to Udio’s AI model.
Country artist Martina McBride is among the artists who have been vocal about protecting artists and their voices. Earlier this year, she testified in support of the NO FAKES Act, bipartisan legislation that gives individuals the right to protect their voices and likenesses from being replicated by AI without their consent, both in music and in a broader context. “AI technology is amazing and can be used for so many wonderful purposes. But like all great technologies, it can also be abused,” she wrote in a guest column for Billboard published in May.
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Raab and Fram are betting on the human race over deep fakes, even though there may be challenging times looming. “Looking ahead, the realness of human music with heart and human soul will win every time,” Raab predicts.
“Casual streamers might shrug — ‘If it sounds good, who cares?’, but dedicated fans — especially in genres like country — crave the human ‘mistakes’ that add soul, per a study on what makes tracks memorable,” Fram says. “Bottom line: Fans will stream AI songs short-term, but loyalty? That’s earned through real stories, not algorithms…Over time, ‘fake’ acts risk fizzling like one-hit wonders; true superfans bet on humans who evolve with them. AI might open doors, but only flesh-and-blood keeps ’em coming back for encores.”
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Under a new partnership between Universal Music Group (UMG) and Udio, Taylor Swift will soon be able to flip the AI-music switch and allow users to create all the songs they want in the superstar’s style — as would every other artist signed to the world’s biggest label.
“It’s their choice,” Udio’s CEO, Andrew Sanchez, told Billboard shortly after the deal was announced. “But yeah, in the new service, you would be able to do that, and you’d be able to make extraordinary music.”
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Unsurprisingly, Swift was unavailable for comment. But would artists be open to tossing their songs into a generative AI machine to see what the robots can do with them? Maybe, some top managers say. Sia, for example, “views Sia as an avatar,” says Jonathan Daniel, who manages the “Chandelier” hitmaker as well as Miley Cyrus and UMG artist Lorde. “It’s like anyone can be a pop star. That’s why she wears the wig.”
On Oct. 29, UMG was the first major label to settle a lawsuit with Udio, one of the top AI-music services, agreeing to develop a new creation and streaming platform that’s set to launch next year. Under the deal, artists will be able to opt in to the platform in “granular” ways, according to Sanchez, allowing them to choose — by essentially selecting from a menu of options — exactly how fans are allowed to use their music and voices to create songs.
Although Daniel says many of his other clients, including Green Day and Nirvana, are unlikely to submit their catalogs to AI, he adds, “Not all artists, but certainly a lot of artists, are less worried about AI music than people that sound worried about it. Artists are in the magic business, right?”
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AI has spent 2025 creeping into the music business, as artists like Xania Monet and Unbound Music have hit the Billboard charts via streaming and track sales. As Matt Pollack — a senior manager at Monotone Inc., which represents Jack White, Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem and others — puts it, artists, managers and labels must suddenly contend with a future that “wasn’t happening eight weeks ago, and now it is.”
The idea of opting into an AI-music service, even if it’s legal under the terms of the UMG-Udio deal, remains daunting for many artists. (The other two major labels, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, have pending litigation against Udio and, along with UMG, another AI-music firm, Suno; their complaint alleges infringement on “an almost unimaginable scale.”) “Once you start to put words in an artist’s mouth, you’re in a real danger zone,” says Jeff Jampol, CEO of Jam Inc., which manages the estates of The Doors, Janis Joplin, Charlie Parker and others. “The legacy is the art and their voice. Do I want to take that and co-opt it and twist it? No, I don’t.”
Corey Smyth, owner and CEO of Blacksmith Holdings, a management company for Vince Staples, De La Soul, the Max Roach estate and others, worries about the idea of major labels managing the AI future of the business. In his view, label executives profited greatly from the streaming revolution, while many artists received pennies for their work. “They’re going to screw you on it,” he says. “The industry’s not built like that. They’re not building it for you.”
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As for whether his Universal-signed artists might agree to the AI treatment, Smyth says, “It depends on where you are, what your business model is. Are you a legacy artist, [or] are you just a flash in the pan? Most artists are driven by the idea of creating. Anyone who wants to just have the thing done isn’t trying to create art — they’re creating commerce.” Daniel, manager of Sia and Green Day, adds that AI is a “great tool” that “might replace pretty good music,” but “great artists have a point of view. Is AI going to write American Idiot? I don’t think so.”
At Monotone, the management company, AI music is a central topic at weekly staff meetings, Pollack says, including the implications of their clients “opting in” to AI systems, as Sanchez suggested after the Oct. 29 settlement with UMG. One of Montone’s artists is working on short-form video content on a low budget and uses AI to save time and money. But he also finds the concept of managing an AI artist that is “not a breathing entity” a bit too surreal, whether major labels allow the possibility or not. Says Pollack: “That’s insane.”
“The reality of it is, I don’t really know,” he adds. “Nobody ever really planned for this. This was a science-fiction notion up to a year and a half or two years ago.”
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On Oct. 29, Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a landmark deal with AI music startup Udio. As part of the agreement, Udio, which UMG was suing for widespread copyright infringement along with the two other major music companies, offered a compensatory settlement with UMG, effectively ending UMG’s part of the lawsuit and paving the way for a new version of Udio, set to release in 2026, which would be a “new commercial music creation, consumption and streaming experience” that would remunerate participating UMG artists.
To survey the industry’s reaction to the deal, Billboard spoke with professionals who have been following the development of AI music closely from various vantage points, including labels, investment firms, AI music start-ups, the songwriting community and consultancies.
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“This deal is beneficial for the music industry,” one label professional tells Billboard. “My question is, though, is it beneficial for Udio? In the short term, they’re going to go through some tension as they do a reset, but this could be great. It’s early.”
To most who spoke to Billboard for this story, the timing of the deal wasn’t entirely surprising. One label executive points out that news of the agreement was cleverly released just hours before UMG’s Q3 earnings call. Still, Sean Power, CEO of Musical AI, says he “expected a deal in Q1 of 2026, not now.”
Since this summer, reports have circulated that the majors have been discussing settlements with Suno and Udio, leading many to believe the talks were getting close. But as the year wore on, some grew skeptical that settlements would be reached by the end of the year. Though the UMG-Udio deal represents the start of reconciliation, these lawsuits are far from over — Warner Music Group and Sony Music are still pursuing their claims against Udio, and all three majors are still pursuing their lawsuit against Suno.
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Vickie Nauman, founder of music-tech consultancy CrossBorder Works, says she’s been watching out for this deal since Lucian Grainge, UMG’s chairman/CEO, released a letter on Oct. 13 expressing the company’s plans to pursue AI deals. “I saw that as Lucian putting a stake in the ground about AI,” Nauman says. “When I read that, I thought, ‘He wouldn’t say this unless he’s pretty sure he will reach a deal soon.’ That letter exuded confidence.”
As part of the deal with UMG, Udio is pivoting its offerings, launching a new version of the service in 2026 that will be focused on building fandom and encouraging engagement with existing music, rather than just offering brand-new songs at the click of a button, as it does now. The new version of Udio will feature a number of tools that will allow users to remix, mash up and riff on the songs of participating UMG artists. Users will also be able to create songs in the style of participating artists and use some artists’ voices on songs.
One investor, who has not invested in Suno or Udio and spoke to Billboard on the condition of anonymity, said that he fears Udio will run into the same problems as AI film company Runway, which signed a deal with Lionsgate to adapt their intellectual property — a partnership that, one year later, has yet to produce results. “The Lionsgate catalog is too small to create a model,” a person familiar with the situation told The Wrap. “In fact, the Disney catalog is too small to create a model.”
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A label executive, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, adds: “I’d like to see Udio succeed, because I think they’re trying to get on the right side of history. Do I think this deal puts them in a little bit of a box, though? Yes.”
Songwriter/producer Oak Felder raised another point in my TikTok comment section: “The question is: how does [this deal] affect catalogs that are split between Universal and Sony or any other publisher without a deal[?] Udio can’t utilize a song in Universal’s catalog that’s split between writers on non-Universal publishers, right?” (A UMG rep declined to provide specific details on that point.)
Udio and UMG’s deal allows artists to opt in with “granular” controls, as Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez told Billboard shortly after the deal was announced, over which parts of the new Udio service they want to participate in — seen as a win for artists’ autonomy. But the investor asks: “How many of these artists are actually going to opt in?”
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Another possible challenge for Udio: there are already multiple companies offering, or planning to offer, remixing and fan-focused AI features. This includes MashApp, Hook and Spotify, which recently announced that it’s working on AI music products, including remixing features, with the consent of the majors and some large independent music companies.
“It’s a calculated risk,” says Nauman about Udio’s decision to pivot, but she notes that trying to build a business that allows everyone to create quick songs was a risk, too. “I think that just the idea of being able to prompt a few songs easily is kind of a fad, so this [new Udio service] could be interesting. But users will be the ultimate arbiter here.”
Executives interviewed for this story were mixed on how they think Udio’s deal with UMG will impact Suno. “If I were Suno, I would be feeling a lot of pressure after this deal,” says Power. “But also, I don’t imagine that its investors are scared of litigating this to the end.”
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Barclays Research recently pointed out that Suno’s fundraising better insulates it from the impact of these lawsuits with the majors than Udio: “Even a [tough] settlement…would likely only mean the disappearance of Udio, while…Suno may have the necessary financial firepower.”
The anonymous investor adds, “One thing that helps Suno here is they will capture all the Udio users that are going to unsubscribe,” given that Udio is pivoting to become a different service. As part of the UMG deal, Udio prevented its users from exporting their work from Udio, effective immediately. This led to backlash among users, who felt they should’ve been warned about the change. Soon after, Udio allowed users to export their work during a 48-hour window.
Nauman says the UMG-Udio deal “puts every single AI music company, including Suno, on notice. I’ve already seen a number of comments from people in music who are saying Udio is very impressive and friendly. That’s an important piece to this. When engaging with rights holders and licensing, it’s both incredibly transactional but also very relationship and trust-driven. Udio is in a strong position by earning that trust.”
Most interviewed for this story saw the deal as an important step forward for the music business. But does it make Warner and Sony more likely to come to the table? “What Sony and Warner do here, I’m not exactly sure,” says Power. “I’m going to be very interested to see where things land, and I’m really thinking about Universal here. They’re now the ones who can say they made the big move.”
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AI was an omnipresent topic at the Music Tectonics conference in Santa Monica, Calif., earlier this week, creeping into seemingly every panel discussion and casual poolside conversation. Everybody can see that AI will transform the music business. That’s a 30,000-foot view. Zoom in, however, and there’s far less certainty about how, exactly, AI will disrupt the status quo.
“Not everybody wants to be a creator” was a frequently heard sentiment. Lucas Cantor Santiago of Mindset Ventures has a particular point of view as a composer. The setup he currently uses to write music would have cost $200,000 15 years ago. Now, somebody can get “basically the same tools” from a trip to the Apple Store. But Cantor Santiago doesn’t believe access to tools has led to more creators. “It’s just caused people like me to start writing music faster, and maybe people who didn’t have classical training to be able to start writing music,” he said on a panel.
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AI’s ability to help human creators, not replace them, was a common theme at Music Tectonics. Granted, the conference was heavy on consumer technology brands such as Yamaha, Roland and Fender. Had AI anarchists been invited to speak, there would have been more diversity of thought. But the opinions of people who actually make music for a living carry a lot of weight, as they’re on the front lines of making music that eventually finds an audience. To this crowd, AI slop has little redeeming value and won’t find a meaningful audience.
The historical record doesn’t fully support the idea that AI won’t increase the ranks of creators, though. Greater access to inexpensive production and distribution tools has already transformed the music business. Artists who were previously locked out of nationwide distribution — it was impossible for a DIY artist to get Tower Records to stock their CDs — now have access to tens of millions of consumers through digital distributors and digital service providers (DSPs) such as iTunes and Spotify. “When I owned a record label and house label in Chicago in the ‘80s, there were 100 new records a week,” said Matt Adell, co-founder and COO of Musical AI, on a panel. “When I left [EDM download store] Beatport, there were 27,000 new records a day. There are now over 150,000 new songs a day hitting the DSPs.”
Given easier tools, people are already creating more music. Many of the 150,000 songs a day cited by Adell — or whatever the number is currently — were created by AI. French music streamer Deezer said in September that 28% of tracks uploaded are created wholly by generative AI, underscoring the fact that AI tools could lead to more music being created. Unpopular, long tail music may not attract much attention, but it creates markets where none previously existed. DIY distributors such as DistroKid, CD Baby and TuneCore can operate because production tools are inexpensive — sometimes free — and artists can afford the modest fees to distribute their songs globally.
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AI’s biggest impact could be to turn everybody into a small-scale creator. Kristen Bender, senior vp of digital innovation strategy and business development at Universal Music Group (UMG), noted during a panel that 30% to 40% of all music content on social media platforms has been manipulated by AI in some way, suggesting there are more creators than people might think. “We think that AI is going to enable so [much] hyper-personalization and interesting ways to interact with content,” she said.
Along those lines, Liz Moody, a partner at law firm Granderson Des Rochers, described how AI tools will allow fans to interact with artists in new ways. Moody, who worked on Udio’s recent licensing deal with UMG, told the audience Udio could create “a fan-focused experience where fans can work with their favorite artists to make personalized music, maybe with the artist’s voice, or maybe create some mashups between two songs that they love.”
When AI tools first appeared, the initial conversation focused on AI-generated music’s potential to supplant the popularity of human-created songs. But Bender and Moody — who have visibility into where these business models are headed — encouraged people to think smaller. It’s easy to imagine a licensed, industry-sanctioned generative AI platform partnering with well-known artists to create personalized renditions of “Happy Birthday” for their subscribers. But it’s a lot harder to imagine anyone other than the creator wanting to hear their personalized version.
Trending on Billboard Another day, another flood of music industry deals. How does one keep track? In an effort to provide an overview of the latest acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, licensing agreements and more, Billboard publishes a list of all of the latest pacts that have hit our radar every other Thursday. Intellectual property rights […]
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A few years into the debate about AI’s potential economic impact on music, the jury is still out.
AI could be great for the music business, enabling new products and creating new revenue streams for artists and songwriters. Universal Music Group (UMG) has said as much. “We believe the commercial opportunity is potentially very significant,” chief digital officer Michael Nash said during the company’s earnings call on Thursday (Oct. 30), a day after it announced a licensing deal with AI music generator Udio. “These new products and services could constitute an important source of incremental additional new future revenue for artists and songwriters.”
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Then again, AI could erode record labels and music publishers’ businesses by flooding the internet with inexpensively made music that takes some — not all — of their market share. Record labels have already lost market share to independent artists in recent years, and AI could be either a continuation or acceleration of existing trends.
Two years ago, analysts at Barclays Research were dismissive of AI-generated music’s threat to the established music business. The general population might have access to music-making tools, but, Barclays reasoned, the quality of the music was poor, and songs created by faceless software housed on computer servers couldn’t create the human connection that listeners desire. Record labels and music publishers could be hurt if social platforms pushed AI music, but the money-saving tactic could run into legal roadblocks, they said. For all the initial hoopla about AI’s ability to upset the status quo, too many questions at the time remained unanswered.
Today, though, Barclays is singing a different tune, and advancements in AI platforms have answered some of their earlier questions. Now, the analysts are more convinced of AI music’s potential to erode record labels’ market share and weaken their financial standing. The quality of music has “improved significantly,” they wrote in a Tuesday (Oct. 28) report titled “AI in Music: Danger Zone,” adding that it’s “hard to differentiate between human music and AI music.” Fans still crave connections with human artists, they wrote, but as opposed to their earlier take, they conceded that AI music represents a threat to the music establishment.
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In the Barclays analysts’ view, AI is a mixed bag of gains (such as AI-enabled superfan tiers) and losses (lower royalties from social media platforms’ adoption of cheap AI music). Overall, though, they believe the damage that AI can create will outweigh its benefits. Their bottom line: In an average scenario, UMG takes a 1% hit to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and Warner Music Group’s EBITDA drops 4%. A worst-case scenario calls for deeper losses. A best-case scenario sees AI providing a boost.
Not everybody is in the Barclays camp, however. Despite advancements in the quality of music produced by AI platforms, analysts at J.P. Morgan are sticking with their opinion from 2023 that AI will not have “a meaningful impact on industry revenues.” Analysts wrote in a note to UMG investors on Monday (Oct. 27) that AI risks have been “negated” and “controlled” by the company’s efforts in recent years to get streaming platforms to prioritize and reward professional artists over mass-produced, low-quality recordings.
Like Barclays, J.P. Morgan believes market erosion is a genuine threat to UMG’s market share. But J.P. Morgan analysts see much more upside in AI. (Notably, J.P. Morgan’s analysis was less thorough; unlike Barclays, it didn’t put a dollar value on AI’s potential impact.) They note that UMG will benefit from AI artists’ need for publishers and record labels (which jibes with Billboard’s assessment of Hallwood Media’s impact on Xania Monet’s on-demand streams). AI can also generate revenue streams from new licensing opportunities and make listening to music more enjoyable, they write.
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The major labels and publishers haven’t signed or created AI artists yet, but if they do, J.P. Morgan believes they will benefit from economics that are superior to their deals with human artists and songwriters. It’s not a stretch: To capture some of the market share that has shifted to independent artists, UMG has invested heavily in artist services by building up Virgin Music Group and attempting to acquire Downtown Music Holdings (the European Commission will announce its decision on the proposed merger in February 2026). If AI artists are to compete in the marketplace, they will need the same services that are available to human artists, such as promotion, distribution, copyright administration and public relations.
One thing is certain: Because AI music is in its infancy, trying to figure out its long-term trajectory is difficult. When the music industry began navigating the shift from physical to digital in the late ‘90s, few people could have guessed that the marketplace of 2025 would be dominated by subscription royalties and that download revenue would be almost nonexistent. When Napster launched in 1999, nearly a decade before the iPhone debuted, imagining the influence of an app like TikTok would have been nearly impossible. Music companies got to this point by enforcing the value of their intellectual property through a few decades of licensing agreements and lawsuits.
In the near term, expect more deals like UMG’s partnership with Udio. Over the long term, expect to be surprised.
Trending on Billboard
Music Artists Coalition (MAC), a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for music creators, has responded to Universal Music Group’s new AI deal with Udio, asking questions about how artists will be compensated. “We’re cautiously optimistic but insistent on details,” said Jordan Bromley, leader at Manatt Entertainment and board member of MAC, in a press release put out by MAC on Friday (Oct. 31).
The UMG-Udio deal, which was announced Wednesday night (Oct. 29), is multifaceted. First, it involves a “compensatory” legal settlement for UMG, which sued Udio last summer, along with the other major music companies, for copyright infringement of their sound recordings during Udio’s training process. (Sony and Warner’s lawsuit against Udio is ongoing.)
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It also provides go-forward licensing agreements for UMG’s recorded music and publishing assets, which is said to open up a new revenue stream for the company and its signees who decide to opt in. Those artists and songwriters who participate will be compensated for both the training process of the AI model and for its outputs, according to a source close to the deal.
As part of the agreement, Udio plans to pivot its offerings significantly. In 2026, the company will launch a new platform “powered by new cutting-edge generative AI technology that will be trained on authorized and licensed music. The new subscription service will transform the user engagement experience, creating a licensed and protected environment to customize, stream and share music responsibly, on the Udio platform.” This will include new tools that let fans remix, mashup and create songs in the style of participating UMG artists. It will also allow fans to use UMG artist voice models.
Opting into the Udio deal is not a one-size-fits-all approach. According to a recent interview with Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez about the deal, the company “[has] built and invested an absolutely enormous amount into controls. Controls over how artists’ songs can be used, how their styles can be used, really granular controls…One of the things that you’ll see is we’re going to launch with a set of features that has a spectrum of freedom that the artist can control.”
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One area that Sanchez and UMG’s announcement about the deal did not provide clarity on was how exactly participating artists will be compensated. This is why MAC put out a press release on Friday (Oct. 31) asking exactly what is going on — and noting the organization is only “cautiously optimistic” about the agreement.
As Irving Azoff, top artist manager, entrepreneur, board member and founder of MAC, put it in the announcement: “Every technological advance offers opportunity, but we have to make sure it doesn’t come at the expense of the people who actually create the music — artists and songwriters. We’ve seen this before — everyone talks about ‘partnership,’ but artists end up on the sidelines with scraps. Artists must have creative control, fair compensation and clarity about deals being done based on their catalogs.”
The press release goes on to say that while MAC appreciates that the deal is “opt-in” and with “granular control,” the organization still has questions, which are quoted below:
“Meaningful consent: How do artists actually control what uses they authorize? What happens when multiple songwriters or performers on a single song disagree about participation?”
“Revenue splits: What percentage of revenue goes to artists versus the label versus the AI company when their music is used to train models or generate new works?”
“Data and deal transparency: Was settlement money paid? How will that be distributed to artists? Will artists’ pay-outs for a new revenue stream just be applied to old unrecouped balances? Will artists see exactly how their work is being used within the AI system and have ongoing visibility into its use?”
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“Artist opt-in sounds promising, but participation without fair compensation isn’t partnership; it’s just permission,” said Ron Gubitz, MAC’s executive director, in the press release. “Artists create the work that makes these AI systems possible. They deserve both control over how their work is used and appropriate compensation for its value generation. It’s the three C’s: consent, compensation, and clarity.”
“The music industry is at a crossroads,” Gubitz added. “The decisions being made right now will shape how music gets created, distributed, and monetized for decades to come. That’s exactly why MAC exists — to ensure artists have a seat at the table when those decisions are made.”
Bromley added: “True partnership requires appropriate oversight and remuneration for all involved parties. The industry needs to get this right — for artists, for fans, and for the future of music itself.”
Trending on Billboard
On Wednesday night (Oct. 29), Universal Music Group (UMG) and AI music company Udio announced they had reached a strategic agreement. Importantly, this agreement not only settled UMG’s involvement in the massive copyright infringement litigation the major labels brought against Udio and another AI music company, Suno, last summer, but also paved the way for the two companies to “collaborate on an innovative, new commercial music creation, consumption and streaming experience,” according to the announcement.
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The newly revamped version of Udio is set to debut in 2026, and it will feature fully-licensed UMG sound recordings and publishing assets that are totally controlled by UMG — but only those from artists that choose to participate.
Here, Billboard looks at the deal more deeply and answers some questions that have arisen in the wake of the first-of-its-kind agreement.
Why did UMG and Udio decide to come together and settle this week?
It’s hard to know exactly what happened behind closed doors, but reports that the major music companies had been in talks to settle with Udio — and Suno, which was also sued in a nearly identical lawsuit by the majors — have been circulating since this summer, making it relatively unsurprising to hear that at least one deal has been finalized.
One clue as to why there was incentive to settle here comes from a recent Barclays Research report on the majors’ lawsuits against the AI music firms, which stated that it could be “prohibitively expensive to lose” for Udio, much more than Suno, given the two firms had raised $10 million and $125 million, respectively, at the time the report was published on Tuesday (Oct. 28). Even a tough settlement, the report states, “would likely only mean the disappearance of Udio.”
The timing of the press release about the UMG-Udio deal also arrived the night before UMG’s Q3 earnings call, which took place yesterday (Oct. 30). The company has a history of announcing big news just before earnings calls in general, including one instance when UMG reached an agreement with TikTok the night before earnings in 2024 after a three-month standoff.
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What exactly will this 2026 version of Udio entail?
The new version of Udio will feature a number of tools to allow users to remix, mash up and riff on the songs of participating UMG artists. Users will also be able to create songs in the style of participating artists and use some artists’ voices on songs.
According to Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez, who spoke to Billboard just after the deal was announced, “[Udio is] going to involve all kinds of AI models, like a base model… The best way to explain it, [is it] will have sort of like flavors of the model that will be specific to particular styles or artists or genres. And this, again, provides an enormous amount of control.”
How can UMG artists and songwriters participate, and can they get paid for that?
Yes, UMG artists and songwriters will be remunerated for participating in Udio. According to a source close to the deal, this will include financial rewards for both the training process of the AI model and for its outputs. The details of exactly how that payment will work beyond this are unclear. Sanchez declined to answer a question about whether the model uses attribution (tracing back which songs in a training dataset influenced the outputs of a model) or digital proxies (a selected benchmark, like streaming performance, used to determine the popularity of songs in a dataset against others overall) as a way to determine payment — two of the most often proposed methods of AI licensing remuneration.
This answer is also made more complicated when considering the breadth of AI tools Udio plans to offer on its service. Importantly, artists can pick and choose exactly which Udio tools they “opt-in” to: “We’re going to launch with a set of features that has a spectrum of freedom that the artist can control,” Sanchez said. “There are some features that will be available to users that will be more restrictive in what they can do with their artists or their songs. And then there will be others that are more permissive. The whole point of it is not only education but just meeting artists at the levels they’re comfortable with.”
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Who is the target audience for the newly revamped Udio?
According to Sanchez, it’s fans: “We want to build a community of superfans around creation. As we say internally, it’s connection through creation — whether that’s with artists or that connection with other music fans. We want to lean into that. I think it’s going to be a huge asset for artists and fandoms.”
Are Sony and Warner still pursuing their lawsuits against Udio?
Yes, for now. UMG’s settlement and deal with Udio does not impact Sony Music and Warner Music Group’s lawsuit against Udio for widespread copyright infringement. While some industry onlookers posit that Sony and Warner are more encouraged to settle now that UMG is no longer pursuing litigation against Udio, there’s no indication that these companies are definitely planning to do so yet.
Why are some Udio users upset about this deal?
By doing this deal with UMG, Udio has agreed to a major pivot in its offering to users. Currently, the site is known for helping users make songs from simple text prompts, which they can then export and upload to streaming services, share on social media — or whatever they want to do.
Users are particularly upset because, as part of this deal with UMG, Udio immediately removed its users’ ability to download their work from the service. Angry subscribers gathered on a subreddit to complain. “This feels lie an absolute betrayal,” wrote one user. “I’ve spent hundreds of $$$ and countless hours building tracks with this tool,” wrote another. “No one warned us that one day, we wouldn’t even be able to access our own music. You can’t just pull the plug and call that a ‘transition.’”
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In a statement to Billboard on Thursday (Oct. 30), an Udio spokesperson said that disabling exports on the platform is “a difficult but necessary step to support the next phase of the platform and the new experiences ahead.” On Friday (Oct. 31), Udio relented slightly, writing on Reddit that starting Monday (Nov. 3), the platform will give users a 48-hour window to download their existing songs — and that any songs downloaded during that time will be covered by the terms of service that existed before the UMG deal was signed.
The move to restrict downloads in the long term may prove to be more than just an inconvenience for users — Udio could also be hit with legal claims over it. There could be arguments made that disabling downloads was a breach of the subscription contract that Udio signed with users, or that Udio falsely advertised its services in violation of consumer protection laws. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened in recent memory: Just last year, Amazon Prime users brought claims like this over changes to the cost of ad-free movie and TV streaming for subscribers.
