State Champ Radio AI
Trending on Billboard
Suno and Warner Music Group (WMG) have signed a licensing agreement to forge “a new chapter in music creation,” as Suno CEO Mikey Shulman put it in a company blog post. The deal effectively settles WMG’s part of the $500 million copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno, which it filed alongside UMG and Sony Music last summer. (UMG and Sony Music’s part of the lawsuit is still ongoing).
The deal also includes Suno’s acquisition of the WMG-owned live music discovery platform Songkick, which will continue to run as-is. “The combination of Suno and Songkick will create new potential to deepen the artist-fan connection,” says a press release about the deal.
Related
As Suno’s blog post puts it, the licensing agreement with WMG “introduces new opportunities for artists and songwriters to get paid,” but it does not describe exactly how. It does, however, note that participating is optional for WMG artists and songwriters, who can “opt-in” for the use of their names, images, likenesses, voices and compositions to be used in AI-generated music as they wish. A press release about the deal also notes that it will “compensat[e] and protect artists, songwriters and the wider creative community.”
The blog post also states that the WMG partnership “unlocks a bigger richer Suno experience for you,” including “new, more robust features for creation, opportunities to collaborate and interact with some of the most talented musicians in the world.” It adds that the deal “preserves the magic of Suno and the way you’ve come to love creating with it.”
News of the agreement comes just weeks after Universal Music Group (UMG) forged a licensing deal with Udio, which was also sued by the majors in a near identical lawsuit. That deal resulted in Udio pivoting its service significantly, becoming more of a fan-engagement platform where users could play with UMG copyrights whose rights holders opted into the platform’s “walled garden” environment, rather than one where users can create and download AI-generated songs at the click of a button. WMG followed suit with a similar agreement on Nov. 19.
Related
The press release states that in 2026, Suno will make several changes to the platform, including launching new and improved licensed music-making models, but it is not pivoting away from its core offerings. When that new model rolls out, the release says that the current one will be “deprecated,” given that it is not licensed. “Moving forward, downloading audio will require a paid account. Suno will introduce download restrictions in certain scenarios: specifically in the future, songs made on the free tier will not be downloadable and will instead be playable and shareable,” the release adds. Paid users of Suno will also be limited in the number of downloads they can make each month; to unlock additional downloads, they will have to pay extra fees.
“This landmark pact with Suno is a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone,” said WMG CEO Robert Kyncl in a statement. “With Suno rapidly scaling, both in users and monetization, we’ve seized this opportunity to shape models that expand revenue and deliver new fan experiences. AI becomes pro-artist when it adheres to our principles: committing to licensed models, reflecting the value of music on and off platform, and providing artists and songwriters with an opt-in for the use of their name, image, likeness, voice and compositions in new AI songs.”
Suno CEO Shulman added: “Our partnership with Warner Music unlocks a bigger, richer Suno experience for music lovers, and accelerates our mission to change the place of music in the world by making it more valuable to billions of people. Together, we can enhance how music is made, consumed, experienced and shared. This means we’ll be rolling out new, more robust features for creation, opportunities to collaborate and interact with some of the most talented musicians in the world, all while continuing to build the biggest music ecosystem possible.”
Trending on Billboard
iHeartRadio’s chief programming officer and president, Tom Poleman, sent a letter to staff on Friday (Nov. 21), obtained by Billboard, pledging that the company doesn’t and won’t “use AI-generated personalities” or “play AI music that features synthetic vocalists pretending to be human,” among other promises.
The pledge marks the beginning of iHeart’s new “Guaranteed Human” program, which will also see the company publish only “Guaranteed Human” podcasts, according to Poleman’s letter.
Related
Starting Monday (Nov. 24), “‘Guaranteed Human’ is a core part of our brand,” Poleman wrote. “You’ll hear it in our imaging, and we want listeners to feel it every time they tune in.” iHeartRadio DJs must now add a line to their hourly legal IDs about being “Guaranteed Human.”
“Remember, this isn’t a tagline — it’s a promise,” Poleman added. “And it’s part of every station’s personality.”
News of the pro-human content initiative comes after recent headlines about the growth — and increasing indistinguishability — of AI-generated voices, songs and podcasts. According to French streaming service Deezer, 97% of participants in a recent study could not tell the difference between AI and human-made songs; the platform also estimates that 50,000 full AI-generated songs are added to their service every day. Billboard also recently revealed that AI music company Suno is generating 7 million tracks a day.
Related
While most of these AI songs aren’t receiving many streams or sales, there have been several breakthroughs in recent weeks. This includes Xania Monet, an artist whose work was recorded using Suno and paired with AI images. Her song “How Was I Supposed to Know?” recently debuted on the Adult R&B Airplay chart and has been put in rotation by a handful of radio stations across the U.S.
In terms of radio DJs, an AI radio personality called DJ Tori has taken over the undesirable overnight and weekend shifts at a hard-rock radio station in Hiawatha, Iowa, called KFMW Rock 108, according to a Rolling Stone report. Her voice and image — that of a fashionable tattooed rocker — are both AI-generated. Meanwhile, will.i.am launched RAiDiO.FYI, an interactive AI radio app featuring synthetic voices that tell you about the songs that are playing. Spotify also continues to push its AI DJ feature, programmed based on the voice and persona of one of its employees.
In the world of podcasting, a company called Inception Point AI, founded by a former Wondery executive, has more than 5,000 podcasts and is generating 3,000 episodes a week at a cost of $1 or less per episode.
To underscore his point to iHeart employees, Poleman added some stats, including that “70% of consumers say they use AI as a tool, yet 90% want their media to be from real humans,” and that “92% say nothing can replace human connection — up from 76% in 2016.”
Read the full letter below.
Related
Team,
A few weeks ago, I shared that iHeart is one of the last truly human entertainment sources and our listeners come to us for companionship, connection, and authenticity — something AI can’t replicate. We’re Guaranteed Human. We don’t use AI-generated personalities. We don’t play AI music that features synthetic vocalists pretending to be human. And the podcasts we publish are also Guaranteed Human.
Thank you for leaning into our commitment to keep everything we do real and authentic. That’s what makes us special. And now we’re taking it a step further.
Starting Monday, 11/24, we’re making “Guaranteed Human” a core part of our brand. You’ll hear it in our imaging, and we want listeners to feel it every time they tune in. Here’s how:
Hourly Legal IDs:
We’re changing hourly legal IDs beginning Monday to say:
“(Station call letters/name), (city of license) an iHeartRadio station… Guaranteed Human” (with the iHeartRadio audio signature heartbeat).
These will run every hour on our stations.
Sweepers
To augment our legal IDs, we also want you to create fun, nonchalant sweepers that fit your station’s vibe and reinforce that we’re Guaranteed Human. Sweepers should end with the words “Guaranteed Human.” Drop them in every hour, between songs or talk content where it feels natural. Many stations will also start these on Monday, with others ramping up in the following weeks.
Attached are examples of the hourly legal ID and sweepers.
Remember, this isn’t a tagline — it’s a promise. And it’s part of every station’s personality. When listeners interact with us, they know they’re connecting with real voices, real stories, and real emotion. That’s our superpower.
A little about why this matters so much; research says:
70% of consumers say they use AI as a tool, yet 90% want their media to be from real humans.
92% use social media, but 2/3 say it makes them feel worse and more disconnected.
92% say nothing can replace human connection — up from 76% in 2016.
9 in 10 say human trust can’t be replicated with AI.
To be clear, we do encourage the use of AI powered productivity and distribution tools that help scale our business operations – such as scheduling, audience insights, data analysis, workflow automation, show prep, editing and organization. Those tools help us reach more people efficiently, while preserving the human creativity and authenticity that define our brand.
We talk to our listeners constantly, and they tell us they are also using AI as a tool, but they tell us there’s a limit:
3/4 expect AI will complicate their lives in the next year and beyond.
82% are worried about the impact AI will have on society.
2/3 are worried about losing their jobs to AI.
And, funny enough, 2/3 even fear that AI could someday go to war with humans.
The bottom line is our research tells us that 96% of consumers think “Guaranteed Human” content is appealing. So, we’re leaning in.
Thank you for keeping it real and making “Guaranteed Human” something that our audience hears and feels every day.
Sometimes you have to pick a side — we’re on the side of humans.
Tom
Trending on Billboard
Every two weeks, users on the AI music platform Suno create as much music as what is currently available on Spotify, according to Suno investor presentation materials obtained by Billboard. Those users are primarily male, aged 25-34, and spend an average of 20 minutes creating the some 7 million songs produced on the platform daily, according to the documents and additional sources.
Related
Suno sees a future where, as it expands its offerings, creators and listeners will not need to leave the app to create, stream or share their music socially. The goal is listed as creating “high-value, high-intent music discovery” and “artist-fan interaction.”
Now, Suno might have the money to fulfill that ambitious vision. Suno announced last week that it had raised $250 million in a C fundraise, led by Menlo Ventures, with additional investors including NVIDIA’s venture capital arm NVentures and Hallwood Media. The round brings Suno’s valuation up to $2.45 billion.
“In just two years, we’ve seen millions of people make their ideas a reality through Suno, from first-time creators to top songwriters and producers integrating the tool into their daily workflows,” Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said in a statement about the company’s new influx of cash. “This funding allows us to keep expanding what’s possible, empowering more artists to experiment, collaborate and build on their creativity. We’re proud to be at the forefront of this historic moment for music.”
The investment materials, obtained by Billboard, provide more insight into the company’s aspirations for what Shulman calls the “future of music” which he is “seeing … take shape in real time.” In the materials, Suno claims that by 2028 the company will grow to $1 billion in revenue, and “this is before we consider monetizing consumption.” Eventually, the company says, the Suno of “tomorrow … will power the new, bigger music ecosystem and will be a $500 billion company.” Reps for Suno did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
According to the pitch deck, this funding round will be allocated to the following uses: 30% computing power, 20% mergers and acquisitions, 20% discovery, 20% marketing, 15% data and 5% partnerships. Already, the company has shown an interest in growing and expanding its offerings via acquisition, having purchased digital audio workstation WavTool in June 2025.
Related
Notably, compute power — the hardware, processors, memory, storage and energy that operate data centers — is the company’s biggest expense since Jan. 2024, which is a common situation for many AI companies. “Amid the AI boom, compute power is emerging as one of this decade’s most critical resources … there is an unquenchable need for more,” a McKinsey study said about the cost of compute in the age of AI.
OpenAI’s AI video and social platform, Sora, for example, especially struggles against high compute costs due to the complexities of generating video. According to an estimate by Forbes, Sora costs the company as much as $15 million per day to run. According to Suno’s financials, reviewed by Billboard, Suno has spent over $32 million on training its model since January 2024. That breaks down to $32 million spent on compute power and $2,000 spent on data costs — meaning the cost of content, like music, which it uses to train its model.
Suno is currently in the middle of a number of lawsuits concerning the data on which it trains its model. This includes two class action copyright infringement lawsuits, filed by indie musician groups; one lawsuit from Danish rights group Koda; and one from German collection society GEMA. Most significantly, however, is the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the three major music companies, Sony, Universal and Warner, against Suno for $500 million, claiming widespread copyright infringement of their sound recordings “at an almost unimaginable scale” to train its model.
In recent months, there have been reports that Suno — and Udio, which was also sued in a near-identical lawsuit by the majors — has been in licensing and settlement talks with the majors. At least part of that reporting proved to be true: recently, Udio settled with both Universal and Warner and created a license structure for their recorded music and publishing interests. (Sony’s lawsuit against the company is still ongoing). Now, to work with the music companies, Udio is pivoting its service to become more of a fan engagement platform where users can play with participating songs in a “walled garden,” meaning users cannot download and post the creations on streaming services.
Related
Suno’s pitch deck does not say anything about its lawsuits with copyright holders. It also does not discuss any plan for licensing musical content.
Suno sold investors on its vision to create a service where you can “create, listen and inspire” on the platform, “turn[ing] music from passive consumption into an active participatory culture.” To expand this vision, Suno plans to roll out more products like a voice beautification filter and a social media service. It also touts that its work has cultural power outside of consumption on its own service, including a photo of cover art from viral AI band The Velvet Sundown next to the text, “Suno songs go viral off platform.”
The deck shows an image of a user playing guitar in a TikTok-like vertical social media video. In the top right corner, above typical social media buttons (“Like” “comment” and share”) is a button that says “Create Hook,” implying that users will connect through iterating and remixing each other’s creations in a video, social-forward way.
The company’s vision for the future, however, hinges on customer acquisition and reducing the number of users who leave the service after joining. According to the deck, Suno says it has 1 million subscribers already, up 300% year over year, and it currently says approximately 25% of subscribers remain after 30 days. On a weekly basis, Suno says it has 78% retention for subscribers and 39% weekly retention for all users.
Suno’s investment materials say that one positive indicator is that the company is “reactivating” an increasing number of users, meaning these users came back after one month. As of July 2025, Suno claims 350,000 reactivated users per week. The company attributes this to things like new features, increased awareness and improvements in their model.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall.
Trending on Billboard
KLAY has signed AI licensing deals with the three major music companies — Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music and Warner Music Group (WMG) — on both the recorded music and publishing sides of their businesses.
Little is known about KLAY, which is set to launch “in the coming months,” according to a press release, but one source close to the deal tells Billboard the company will be a subscription-based interactive streaming service where users can manipulate music. In 2024, the company made its first licensing announcement with UMG, but back then, the service was described as a “Large Music Model,” dubbed “KLayMM,” which would “help humans create new music with the help of AI.”
Related
Since its inception, KLAY has stressed its interest in being a partner to the music industry, providing ethical solutions in the AI age, rather than an adversary. As its press release states, “KLAY is not a prompt-based meme generation engine designed to supplant human artists. Rather, it is an entirely new subscription product that will uplift great artists and celebrate their craft. Within KLAY’s system, fans can mold their musical journeys in new ways while ensuring participating artists and songwriters are properly recognized and rewarded.”
The company was founded by Ary Attie (a musician and now CEO), and Thomas Hesse (former president of global digital business and U.S. sales and distribution at Sony Music and now KLAY’s chief content and commercial officer). The company’s top ranks also include Björn Winckler (chief AI officer; former leader of Google DeepMind’s music initiatives), and Brian Whitman (chief technology officer; former principal scientist at Spotify and founder of The Echo Nest).
“Technology is shaped by the people behind it and the people who use it. At KLAY, from the beginning, we set out to earn the trust of the artists and songwriters whose work makes all of this possible,” said Attie in a statement. “We will continue to operate with those values, bringing together a growing community to reimagine how music can be shared, enjoyed, and valued. Our goal is simple: to help people experience more of the music they love, in ways that were never possible before — while helping create new value for artists and songwriters. Music is human at its core. Its future must be too.”
Related
Michael Nash, executive vp and chief digital officer at UMG, said: “We are very pleased to have concluded a commercial license with KLAYVision, following up on our industry-first strategic collaboration framework agreement announced one year ago. The supportive role we played with the capable and diversified management team of Ary, Thomas, Björn and Brian in the development of their product and business model extends our long-standing commitment to entrepreneurial innovation in the digital music ecosystem. We’re excited about their transformational vision and applaud their commitment to ethicality in Generative AI music, which has been a key foundation of our partnership with them from the very start of their journey.”
Dennis Kooker, president of global digital business at Sony Music, said: “We are pleased to partner with KLAY Vision to collaborate on new generative AI products. While this is a beginning, we want to work with companies that understand that proper licenses are needed from rightsholders to build next-generation AI music experiences.”
Carletta Higginson, executive vp and chief digital officer at WMG, said: “Our goal is always to support and elevate the creativity of our artists and songwriters, while fiercely protecting their rights and works. From day one, KLAY has taken the right approach to the rapidly-evolving AI universe by creating a holistic platform that both expands artistic possibilities and preserves the value of music. We appreciate the KLAY team’s work in advancing this technology and guiding these important agreements.”
Trending on Billboard Ice-T was having a little too much fun messing around with AI and had a laugh at putting all of “the Ices” of hip-hop together in one photo. The 67-year-old posted an AI-generated picture featuring himself in a Yankees fitted cap next to Vanilla Ice, Ice Cube and Ice Spice hitting an […]
Trending on Billboard
Solomon Ray, a handsome young singer with a flawlessly trimmed beard, a friendly smile and a fedora tilted at just the right angle, is one of the world’s biggest gospel music stars this week. Four of his songs are on the Gospel Digital Song Sales chart, including No. 1 “Find Your Rest,” a soothing anthem with lyrics derived from Bible verses. He is also not human — not fully human, anyway.
Related
The man behind Solomon’s curtain is Christopher Jermaine Townsend, a 34-year-old rapper otherwise known as Topher, whose fire-breathing MAGA videos like “Let’s Go Brandon” and “The Patriot” have given him enormous followings on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and other social media. After reading recently about Xania Monet, the AI music star created by fellow Mississippi songwriter Telisha “Nikki” Jones, Townsend fired up the $3,500 computer system in his Philadelphia, Miss., basement and downloaded Suno, the AI music platform used by Jones. Within a few days, he and ChatGPT “co-wrote” the lyrics to “Find Your Rest,” Townsend used Suno to create the music and employed online tools to select the voice and master the song, then posted briefly about it as Topher.
Unlike most of the non-human, or partially human, artists who’ve recently hit the charts, Townsend proudly identifies as an AI collaborator. He also doesn’t care about anti-AI backlash — this is a rapper who, in March 2021, released “The Patriot,” with lyrics that included, “March around the Capitol, storm the city gates / putting pressure on their necks until the truth breaks.” He has a record of viewing haters and enemies as good publicity — and his strategy is working, as Ray’s songs have generated 738,000 on-demand audio streams in the U.S. in the past week, according to Luminate.
“[AI] reminds me of the resistance we saw with CGI,” Townsend tells Billboard. “This is CGV for me — computer-generated vocals. When CGI came out, [film director Steven] Spielberg and the industry were mad about ‘people [who] were going to lose their jobs.’ Now, no one cares about movie CGI; as a matter of fact, if you don’t have CGI, it probably won’t sell tickets.” Unlike just about every other AI-assisted artist on the charts, including Monet, Enlly Blue (rock), Breaking Rust (country) and Unbound Music (rock), none of whom have responded to multiple requests for comment, Townsend, reached on Instagram, agreed to two lengthy phone interviews.
Related
How did you come up with the idea of creating an AI artist?
I’m from Mississippi and I’ve been doing music since I was 10 years old, writing, performing. I’ve had Billboard No. 1 chart success as Topher [on Rap Digital Song Sales] — as a real rapper, my vocals, everything. So I’m not coming in as an outsider, or a person without any talent. The only skill I would say I lacked was singing. I caught drift of AI songs with Telisha Jones. When I heard about her success, and her being from Mississippi, I’m super-proud.
Next thing I saw, Timbaland released his AI artist, and I was like, “Okay, this is not just a niche thing, this is a real thing, when you have labels paying multimillion dollars for AI artists and you have the household names adopting the technology.”
What was the process of writing and recording “Find Your Rest”?
About two days after I downloaded the app, my sister and I had a conversation. I could feel her heart was heavy over the phone and she teared up. I let her hear a snippet of what I was working on and she said she loved it. I told her it was AI, but it didn’t bother her. When I got off the phone, I said, “Maybe I can make a song that can uplift her spirit.” I started with Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I wrote the hook, which is, “Don’t grow weary in well-doing / get those problems off your chest.” It developed into a full-blown song.
What did you do next?
I co-write with ChatGPT. I put in, “I want a gospel song, with a choir, here are the lyrics, here’s what I want the hook to be.” I changed this, changed that, and eventually, once I got the song how I wanted to flow the words, lyrically, I copied and pasted that into Suno.
Suno will auto-generate lyrics if you just give it a prompt, but I’ve never done that. Copyright reasons. If you want AI to generate [all the music], you can’t get any publishing. You can’t claim anything. And it can’t write like me. You’re not going to get “Find Your Rest” with a prompt. So I placed lyrics in there. It gives you two samples, and either you like it or you don’t. It took me a while.
Every time you create [on Suno Studio], it costs credits. It gets pretty expensive. I just regenerated every section until I got what I wanted. Then I used landr.com, a mixing and mastering program online. Once the song’s done, I go to Artlist.io to generate Solomon Ray’s look. From there I can generate images, sitting on a truck or walking or whatever.
Related
Why is this a more fruitful songwriting process than just writing your own song?
It helps me eliminate the ideas that I think won’t work. It’s a tool that speeds up the process. If I was to reach out to somebody, and they had to sing this or produce that, it would take forever to get to where I’m trying to get to.
How long did it take you to get from idea to actual song that you posted online?
To give a recent example, my Christmas EP [Solomon Ray’s A Soulful Christmas], those four songs, I started working on it in an evening, and by the next night, I had completed everything — mastered all the songs, created the graphics for the album and uploaded it to Distrokid.
How did you come up with Solomon Ray?
I’m a Christian, so I’ve got a gospel background. My dad’s a blues guitarist and singer. I never dove into it because my capacity to sing wasn’t competitive enough to make a difference, so I chose the rapping route. Solomon Ray allows me to draw out my passions and my stories. I asked ChatGPT, “I need to come up with a good Southern name that’s biblically sound, that when you hear it, it’s unmistakably a Southern gentleman.” It spit out a list of 20-30 names and Solomon Ray was the one I landed on. It’s King Solomon, so it’s like wisdom, wealth. Ray was the sunshine element. I miss the days when men got a chance to dress fashionably, with the peacoats, the hats, the fedoras — that went into building his look. I didn’t want him to sound like somebody that’s been chain-smoking. When I landed on that vocal texture, I decided to keep it.
How much marketing did you do to draw attention to the song?
Although I have millions of followers, I didn’t want to leverage that. People might not like Solomon Ray simply because he’s associated with me. I wanted Solomon Ray to be able to stand on his own. I only posted one video to my TikTok and one video to my Instagram.
As Topher, you’re purely independent, right?
Right. When I was younger, I tried to go through the traditional route, the open mics, the talent shows, trying to pitch it that way. Had no success. I stuck to just being organic. It worked. My songs took off from there. Even though I was doing really well, No. 1 at Billboard, I never got a call from anyone.
It sounds like what you’re saying is the music business is closed to you as an openly conservative rapper and musician.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. But that’s fine. That’s the industry.
But if you identify as conservative, that gives you access to a whole other promotional network, of conservative radio stations, cable channels and podcasts, right?
It’s just that they’re still willing to bring me on and play me. The conservative stations and outlets still play liberal artists. But what you see is the liberal outlets are not going to play many conservative artists.
Related
Solomon Ray’s music is apolitical, but how much does it concern you that potential listeners might say, “This is the MAGA guy, I don’t want to support him”?
To a certain extent. Somebody might have a preconceived bias towards the music simply because [of] what they think about me. That can be [true] for any artist out there. But I believe the art is going to supersede a lot of that noise.
If a label approached you and said, “We like this activity around Solomon Ray,” would you consider signing, or do you want to remain indie?
I’m open to signing. Since I’ve already had my success as Topher, I don’t have this pride in saying, “I did it myself,” because I’ve already done it. If labels come now, it’s like, “Okay, how can we grow this, how can we expand this?” There’s a reason why you have publishing, and I’ve really never been in movies with my music, because there are certain things you don’t have access to as an independent. I’m interested in seeing how far to take him.
You refer to Solomon in the third person. It’s like you have a secret identity.
[Laughs] My wife is sometimes like, “I want you to know that Solomon’s not real.” I’m like, “I know that!” It’s like any other character in a movie.
Trending on Billboard
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl has detailed the company’s approach to generative AI in a new blog post published Wednesday (Nov. 19). The missive arrived just hours after WMG announceda settlement and licensing deal with Udio, effectively ending its part in a blockbuster copyright infringement lawsuit against the AI music company, which it brought alongside the other two majors.
Related
In Kyncl’s address, he stressed that while it’s “early days” for AI, “this is the moment to shape the business models, set the guardrails and pioneer the future for the benefit of artists and songwriters.” The CEO also revealed his thought process when going into meetings with AI companies, saying that his three non-negotiables include “partners who commit to licensed models”; economic terms that benefit and “reflect the value of music”; and giving the company’s signees a choice to “opt-in” to any use of their names, images, likenesses or voices in new AI-generated songs.
Kyncl also stated his belief that AI tools will further democratize music creation, adding that to stand out “in a sea of AI-generated content, real artistry identity and vision” is needed. He additionally stressed that the music industry should focus on engaging fans and getting them to lean in, saying, “the more interactivity users have with the music they love, the more value is created.”
Read the full blog post below.
AI is still in its early days. Investment is surging, talent is pouring in, and a crop of new, ambitious startups are working with music again for the first time in more than a decade. This is the moment to shape the business models, set the guardrails, and pioneer the future for the benefit of our artists and songwriters.
We’re approaching this new era with one priority above all else: protecting and empowering the artists and songwriters who are our reason for being. Every decision we make, every partnership we forge, every principle we establish is designed to ensure that they benefit from AI’s possibilities.
Every AI deal we make is guided by three non-negotiable principles:
1. We will only make agreements with partners who commit to licensed models;2. The economic terms must properly reflect the value of music;3. And, most importantly, artists and songwriters will have a choice to opt-in to any use of their name, image, likeness, or voice in new AI-generated songs.
WHY THIS MOMENT MATTERS
Over the last 25 years, we’ve experienced the democratization of music distribution. Many predicted it would lead to the demise of our industry, but the skeptics were proven wrong.
The barriers to entry have fallen, the world has gotten smaller, and artists are global from day one. Fans love having unlimited personalized access, streaming is driving unprecedented growth, and music is more valuable than ever.
Now, we are entering the next phase of innovation. The democratization of music creation.
We believe Generative AI will lead to a new explosion in creative and commercial opportunities, and that authentic talent will be even more in demand for two reasons
In a sea of AI-generated content, real artistry, identity, and vision will define stronger artistic brands.
The ability for fans to utilize AI will unlock even greater value. As history shows, the more interactivity users have with the music they love, the more value is created.
OUR APPROACH
Our approach is clear: legislate, litigate, license. We lobby for legislation that sets clear guidelines. We deploy litigation to halt bad actors. And we use licensing as the most powerful way to shape the future. Licensing is how we can safeguard our artists and songwriters, while collaborating with tech partners, to propel new fan experiences that drive additional revenue.
The partnerships we forge will offer a variety of specific use cases. Each of them adheres to our principles, winning important protections for artists and songwriters, while ensuring that they share in every dollar that’s earned. And as the services grow their revenue, so will the pay outs.
This space is moving lightning fast. Past lessons teach us that delaying only lets others define our future. The music business learned that during the file-sharing era. And the film & TV industries are still regretting not embracing streaming sooner. So for artists and songwriters to win, the music industry needs to be a leading force in the formative stages of AI, not a passive participant. We will steer the course in this new era to deliver greater value for our artists, songwriters, and their music.
This is only the beginning.
Robert Kyncl
Trending on Billboard
Warner Music Group (WMG) has reached a “landmark” licensing deal with Udio as part of a settlement to resolve the label’s lawsuit against the artificial intelligence music company.
The deal comes weeks after Universal Music Group signed a similar agreement with Udio, under which the AI firm said it would relaunch its platform next year as a more limited subscription service that pays for music rights and gives artists the right to opt out.
Related
Warner’s agreement will follow the same basic framework — with Udio paying a compensatory settlement to resolve Warner’s claims of past copyright infringement, and a licensing deal to allow the company to use the label’s music in the future.
“We’re unwaveringly committed to the protection of the rights of our artists and songwriters, and Udio has taken meaningful steps to ensure that the music on its service will be authorized and licensed,” WMG CEO Robert Kyncl said in a statement. “This collaboration aligns with our broader efforts to responsibly unlock AI’s potential — fueling new creative and commercial possibilities while continuing to deliver innovative experiences for fans.”
Andrew Sanchez, co-founder and CEO of Udio, said the Warner deal “marks a significant milestone in our mission to redefine how AI and the music industry evolve together.” The revamped Udio will let users make remixes, covers and new songs using the voices of artists that opt in, the companies said.
“This partnership is a crucial step towards realizing a future in which technology amplifies creativity and unlocks new opportunities for artists and songwriters,” Sanchez said, adding that it would “enable experiences where fans can create alongside their favorite artists” but in an environment where artists have “control.”
UMG, Sony Music and WMG teamed up last year to sue both Udio and Suno — the other leading AI music firm — for allegedly “trampling the rights of copyright owners” by exploiting vast numbers of songs to train its models. The cases are part of a trillion-dollar legal battle over whether AI firms can use copyrighted works like books, movies and songs to create platforms that spit out new ones.
Wednesday’s deal will not impact the separate case against Suno, which has pulled ahead of Udio as the market-leading AI music platform and has scored key wins like the success of AI-powered artists like Xania Monet. Suno announced on Wednesday that it had raised $250 million in a deal that values the company at $2.45 billion. A rep for Suno did not return a request for comment.
The Suno case will continue forward, as will Sony’s claims against Udio. But the deal certainly lends momentum for Udio to strike a deal with Sony, as the licensed AI music platform is not an exclusive partnership with either WMG or UMG. A rep for Sony did not immediately return a request for comment.
The planned Udio 2.0 will be substantially different than the current services offered by Udio and Suno, which allow users to generate entire songs based on a text prompt. The new service will be a “walled garden” in which users can experiment with AI and listen to the results, but they cannot download or share songs outside the service. It will also not feature the music or voice of any artists who opt out, a potentially large group of excluded songs in a world where artists are leery of AI.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Warner and Udio called those changes a “significant evolution” that was “shifting the company’s focus to a platform built in collaboration with artists and songwriters.” They said the “reimagined” service would only apply to choose to participate, and it would feature “expanded protections and other measures designed to safeguard the rights of artists and songwriters.”
Trending on Billboard
Like many technologies, generative AI developed slowly — then suddenly, all at once. That’s how it looks from a music business perspective, anyway. One day a few top executives at UMG were telling me about it as a future issue — then next “Fake Drake” made news and now AI-assisted artists account for a third of the top 10 on Billboard’s Nov. 15 Country Digital Song Sales chart. Breaking Rust and Cain Walker, the names credited with the songs, are about as country as a server farm.
So where did those songs come from?
Related
The assumption is that the kind of generative AI software that created them was trained on copyrighted songs and recordings, presumably without a license, since few have been granted. That’s probably going to change soon. On Nov. 11, German rights group GEMA won its infringement case against OpenAI (which only involves song lyrics, but the principles are the same and it is also suing Suno). And after all three major labels sued Suno and Udio in the U.S., Universal Music Group announced a settlement with Udio in late October.
The nature of these deals could shape the music business of the future — or could be remembered as something music executives thought was important for some reason they can’t recall. Although little is known about the UMG deal, its unexpected provision is that it restricts the music “output” created by AI by removing the ability of users to download it. That’s a fundamental shift in expectations, and it suggests that UMG envisions AI music as existing apart from music on streaming services — more of a hobby akin to an amateur garage band than a professional product. Obviously, there’s no stopping the flood of AI music, and Udio users who want to “free” their creations can play them and record them to another device — but it’s interesting to note how Udio and UMG think this will work.
The UMG-Udio deal is opt-in for artists and songwriters, so it will take time to see what they think and whether they sign. But the deal casts Udio as “the good guy,” eager to work with the industry’s biggest company, less combative in its public statements and more willing to talk, according to two sources. Suno was already on its way to becoming “the bad guy,” responding to the label lawsuit by accusing the majors of reverting “to their old lawyer-led playbook,” hiring Timbaland to create some space between labels and artists and taking a more oppositional stance, according to one source. (It seems worth noting that the line about the “lawyer-led playbook” may not have aged as well as Suno CEO Mikey Shulman thinks: Anyone who is 30 today was five when the major labels sued Napster and 10 when the Supreme Court ruled in the Grokster case.)
Related
It’s hard to know what the better strategy is in the abstract: Udio scored the first deal, but Suno is said to be raising money at a $2 billion valuation, although it’s also facing a GEMA lawsuit that Udio isn’t. Now that Udio has gone legit, though, Suno has a big incentive to do the opposite, just to differentiate itself. In tactical terms, it will be both more powerful and more vulnerable. If Suno loses its big court case in the U.S., it could get stuck settling its lawsuit under terms worse than Udio’s. If the decision has limited scope or splits, which seems more likely than some executives realize, it could have to make some of the same feature-set compromises as Udio, but under pressure. If it wins the case completely, though, it ends up with a product that is superior to the competition, with a much better cost structure.
Making the first big deal also gives UMG the power to set a pattern that could influence later agreements, at least in structure if not specifics. So far, the big issue executives are talking about is the split between labels and publishers. The latter, which customarily get half of synch rights revenue, want the same deal, and this is one of the few cases, along with synch licenses, where rights to a song might be useful without a recording. (In the case of synch, the song can be played by another artist; theoretically, an AI could be trained on a written composition.) The major label groups all own publishing businesses but have an incentive to favor the recorded music side, since they have more financial exposure to it and the financial model is more favorable. As is generally the case, though, the majors aren’t saying anything about the issue.
Finding the right balance between recording and publishing rights is tricky, and I would bet the publishers end up with a much higher percentage of revenue than they make on streaming, but less than 50%. But will that be all? The opt-in structure of the UMG deal implies that either the biggest company in the industry is feeling especially nice or that it may also need likeness or personality rights from artists. (It’s also possible that those rights are not needed for training purposes — just specific uses of prompts.) But it suggests some other questions. Most important, will artists with especially distinctive voices want a better deal than the standard one on offer?
Related
Then — and here I’m really getting ahead of myself — what happens when artists have recorded for multiple labels or released the same album on different ones in different territories? If you want to use the voice of Johnny Cash, do you want young Cash (from his Sun Records work), prime Cash (Columbia), late Cash (Mercury), or very late Cash (American)? More complicated, what happens if you don’t much care — and how does that affect the structure of licensing? I am offering more questions than answers, but in this case I don’t think anyone has all the solutions. But we should know more soon — and the one thing we know for certain is that it’s going to be very interesting.
Trending on Billboard
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.
Related
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.
Billboard
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.
Related
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.
