State Champ Radio artificial intelligence
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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Imogen Heap has always been known as an innovator in the music industry. The British singer, songwriter, producer and technologist has been experimenting with cutting edge tools to push her creativity forward since she first began releasing music over 25 years ago.
Now, as AI music continues to make headlines in the music industry and infiltrates the songwriting process, Heap is working on ethical ways to incorporate it into her own work. Recently, she released the song “I AM___,” a 13-minute epic that featured a collaboration between Heap and AI.Mogen, her self-trained AI voice model, and by collaborating with her digital self, Heap forces listeners to consider big questions, like the nature of art and self-identity.
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She’s also working on a company called Auracles, which recently announced a partnership with SoundCloud designed to create a verified digital ID for musicians that, in the age of AI, helps them track their music’s uses across the internet, grant permissions for approved uses of their work and create “the missing foundational data layer for music.”
To talk through how she’s using AI in a responsible and creative way as well as the 20th anniversary of her seminal album Speak For Yourself, Heap joined Billboard‘s new music industry podcast, On the Record w/ Kristin Robinson, this week.
Below is an excerpt of that conversation.
Watch or listen to the full episode of On the Record on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts here, or watch it below.
You’ve been watching this space for a long time, but when do you feel like you noticed a shift when everyone else started paying attention?
I feel like the silver lining, really, we definitely are at that place where it’s very confusing right now, and we do need some clarity, but we are, we can do it. There are tools, and everybody wants it. So I feel like the silver lining, really, of this dark cloud that’s on my seat as AI music taking over, is that we are going to get the data layer of works, we’re going to get this complete data layer of works because people will want to prove not only that they’re human, but they want to go there. They want to actually say, “No, I’m human and these are all my works that I actually contributed to.”
Hallwood Media is the first music company to be open about signing so-called AI artists like Xania Monet and imoliver. Do you think that major labels will start signing AI talent, or talent that uses AI very heavily, in the next few years?
I think a lot of things when you say that. I feel a lot of major labels are signing music that sounds AI generated to me anyway, it’s just like, ‘oh, that just sounds like that last thing and that last thing’ — nothing’s changed. So, it wouldn’t surprise me. I thought that that would happen, and wherever there’s money, obviously they’ll go if they think they can make money out of this artist.
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You recently released a 13-minute song called “I AM__” which featured you singing alongside AI.Mogen, which is essentially your own AI voice model. Why did you decide to collaborate with yourself, and what were you trying to say artistically?
It’s kind of a very long winded, kind of silly way to do things, but I did it as a statement. I did it to rile people up, I suppose, and just be able to have this conversation. Because the song, in the beginning, it takes you through this journey of what I’ve experienced over the last four years where I started to think about, ‘Who am I? What am I? And this ego, what is it?
And then I started to think about AI. Because what is AI? What can I feel that AI can’t feel? The noise section in that song is like the annihilation of my ego —I’m not saying I have no ego now — But then, after I needed a section for after care. I wanted to explore this idea that AI is our child. AI is something that we are raising together, as the as the mother and father. Right at the end, there’s the voice of AI.mogen. I wanted it to be an AI voice, even though I had to sing everything. The way I made this is I sang all the parts, and then I put it through my AI model so that the model of my voice is then singing the words. It’s like changing the sound on a on keyboard.
Yeah, so like a voice filter over your own performance, but this filter is also you in a way?
Yeah, and I wanted to trick people. After this quite traumatic noise section, they would feel something, and that voice would not be my voice would be the AI agent’s voice. I wanted to create a discussion. I wanted to, you know, show people that we already don’t know the difference between AI and human, but does it matter? I do say in the title, it’s AI.mogen, but it was all ethically sourced. It was all done in the best way possible. And it’s my own voice, and I didn’t use any, I didn’t generate any music.
Of course, some people already canceled me for, you know, even saying that AI is in my music. So many people have said: ‘You use AI to generate the song?’ I was like, ‘No, I did not. I wish I could, because it took me four years to do it with 100s of hours,’ but the point of this is everybody is fearful of it, but we can still feel. And what is art? Art something for someone, not to somebody else, but if a sense of it, it speaks to you and it makes you feel something does it matter if it makes you recognize something in yourself? I mean, essentially, or AI is generated from human.
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I love that you’ve been able to make this model that is totally within your control. I think the thing that gets scary is when anyone can create another person’s voice model online. I think such an important part of being an artist is having the taste and the curation to know what you want to say and don’t say. In an age of AI, it feels like you’re losing a lot of control over yourself. Do you have fears around that?
I mean, we already have lost control. People basically, you know, say that we’ve written something when we haven’t, and they don’t credit us when we have been a part of it. But that’s still very much less. I do think it’s gonna, really, it’s just gonna, it’s gonna force us into creating something that will make sense of what we have already and for the future, so that we can put a flag in the sand as humans and go, okay, up to this point, it was human generated. Again, I think it just comes down to this core missing piece that we don’t have which is an ID layer, like, identifying home for each individual.
AI almost completely lowers the barrier to entry for making music. As a trained musician, I’m wondering what your thoughts are on that?
Why not? Anyone who has spent 10,000 hours perfecting your craft will always have an edge. If you generate anything off these services right now, you’re just going to sound like 99.99% of other people who did that too, but if you have an edge, if you have a real something there that connects with people, you use these models differently. But, yeah, this helps everyone move forward. I don’t have problem with that at all.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Even before its release to streaming services, “I Run,” a dance/EDM track by the artist HAVEN., was a viral sensation online, amassing millions of plays on TikTok after it was teased on Oct. 10. “I love this song so much,” said one TikTok commenter. “DROP THIS RIGHT NOW PLEASEEEE,” commented another.
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For HAVEN., a new artist project from British producers Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue, who also makes music under the name Waypoint, it was the kind of debut that could change the trajectory of their lives. But now, a swirl of legal complaints and takedown notices have engulfed the song, resulting in it being removed and reuploaded to streaming services multiple times — and stopping its momentum just as it was poised to reach the Billboard charts.
The frenzy of activity around “I Run” prompted multiple A&Rs at major and independent music companies to look into signing the track and the people that created it as it awaited official release. It also caught the attention of the popular UK R&B singer Jorja Smith. The uncredited female vocalist on “I Run” sounded eerily similar to Smith, prompting the singer to to post a video of herself on TikTok using it. She asked in the caption: “who actually is this?” and noted in a reply to a comment “it’s not meeeee” when fans asked if she sang on the track or if it was AI. (The video has since been deleted). Around that time, HAVEN. jumped in, adding #jorjasmith to a now-deleted social post about the song, according to a member of their team. “It was more so just embracing that it does sound like her,” a spokesperson for HAVEN. said. “It became an organic trend.”
That’s when questions started circulating about the origins of HAVEN.’s viral track — and whether or not it was an unauthorized AI deepfake of Smith’s voice. Ultimately, the song was released in late October by Isekai Records, Broke Records and AAO Records, and it continued to amass major listenership — so much so that it quickly reached #11 on the U.S. Spotify chart and #25 on Spotify globally. Meanwhile videos using the song kept going viral on social media, including one in which the rapper Offset apparently played the song during a Boiler Room DJ set, with the video overlaid with text that said, “Unreleased Jorja Smith.” (The song was not actually used during Offset’s recent Boiler Room set.)
Just as the song was taking off, it was taken down from streaming services. The Orchard — to whom Smith is signed — as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI), issued dozens of takedown notices for “I Run” upon its official release, according to screenshots of the notices, alleging various issues with the song, including that the song “misrepresents” another artist and that it constitutes copyright infringement.
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As a result of the dispute, the song has also been withheld from the Billboard charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, on which some chart prognosticators had predicted it would debut this week. Billboard reserves the right to withhold or remove titles from appearing on the charts that are known to be involved in active legal disputes related to copyright infringement that may extend to the deletion of such content on digital service providers.
Broke Records tells Billboard that it filed dozens of counter-notices, asserting HAVEN.’s ownership of the song and noting that no lawsuit has been filed against them to date in association with the song. (The Orchard declined to comment.)
Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and produced the song in ProTools, sharing screenshots and videos of the ProTools session files and stems with Billboard. They admit, however, that “AI-assisted vocal processing” was used to “transform solely [their] voice” in the song. Specifically, they say they used AI music generator Suno to turn Walker’s voice into that of a woman’s — without referencing Smith. According to Suno prompts shared with Billboard, the producers wrote into the model a prompt that included, among other requests, “soulful vocal samples” to get the voice they ultimately used on the song.
“It’s been such an honor to see the love and support for ‘I Run’ these past few weeks,” HAVEN. said in a statement to Billboard. “What started as something fun and experimental between two producers and music-lovers ended up taking the internet by storm. I’m aware that AI has become part of that storm. It shouldn’t be any secret that I used AI-assisted vocal processing to transform solely my voice for ‘I Run.’ As a songwriter and producer I enjoy using new tools, techniques and staying on the cutting edge of what’s happening. To set the record straight, the artists behind HAVEN. are real and human, and all we want to do is make great music for other humans.”
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Suno does not allow users to request specific artist or song names. But the company is currently in the midst of a blockbuster lawsuit with the three major music companies — Sony, Universal and Warner — over allegations of widespread copyright infringement of the majors’ sound recordings during the AI training process. Given Smith is signed to The Orchard, a Sony Music-owned distributor, it is possible her sound recordings were used in Suno’s training. According to the lawsuit and to AI music expert Ed Newton-Rex in an article for Music Business Worldwide, users can find savvy or accidental ways to prompt Suno into providing results that seem to contain recognizable pieces of intellectual property from artists like ABBA, James Brown, Michael Buble and more.
The takedowns list a variety of reasons for the request for removal, according to emails obtained by Billboard, including one from Spotify that says, “We have received a complaint that your content infringes the sound recording rights of a third party. While this claim is under investigation, the content has been removed.” Another from Spotify says the content “violates exclusive rights.” A third reads, “Spotify may remove content that misrepresents a track as originating from or featuring an artist or that uses an artist’s name in a misleading way.” One from TikTok also lists the reason why the track is muted as “it contains unauthorized copyrighted music.”
“Sound recording copyrights are not going to protect her voice if the voice sounded like her. There would have to be a sample of her sound recordings,” says Theresa Weisenberger, lawyer and co-lead at BakerHostetler’s AI practice, adding that voices are only protected by publicity rights — the legal right that varies state-to-state in the U.S. which protects one’s name, image and likeness from exploitation.
Historically, these rights have been mostly limited to commercial contexts, like misleading endorsements. The singer Bette Midler once famously sued the Ford Motor Co. over ads featuring a Midler impersonator who was hired by the company. Amid the boom in AI and deepfakes, however, lawmakers in Tennessee passed a new law, called the ELVIS Act, to dramatically expand the right to stop voice cloning in any context. And federally, lawmakers are currently considering a similar law, the NO FAKES Act, that would do the same thing nationally.
“I think this ought to be a wake up call for people to look at the status of the NO FAKES Act and to deal with how long it will take to get that moving and into a national uniform law,” adds Kenneth Anderson, an attorney at Rimon Law who recently advised his client, Ben Folds, though a deepfake situation. “We have a problem that is rapidly overtaking the music industry. It’s rampant and it’s increasing.”
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To fight the takedowns, HAVEN.’s labels started reuploading the song over and over, leading to a seemingly endless game of whack-a-mole for both sides. The impact on “I Run” became even more pronounced when the song did not appear on The Official Charts in the U.K. or the Billboard charts.
“Once that counter notice is filed and then a lawsuit is not filed, a platform is free to put the song back up if they want to,” explains Weisenberger. “But the fact that platforms aren’t doing that might speak to the PR issue this song causes.”
For Broke, an indie record label founded in 2023, “I Run” was gearing up to be their (and HAVEN.’s) biggest hit yet, and its founders tell Billboard they feel the song is being discriminated against by bigger industry players. “HAVEN., an independent producer-songwriter who created a global breakout hit on his own, is the one being fully de-platformed through a sophisticated campaign by a major label,” the label said in a statement to Billboard. “It is difficult to imagine this recording, if released by a major label, being treated in the same way as HAVEN.”
The song has become a lightning rod for conversations around generative AI use in the creation of popular music. To date, some music streaming services still do not have AI-specific policies in place, and those that do, like Deezer and SoundCloud, tend to only penalize fully AI-generated works, not something like “I Run,” which contains significant human input. As Billboard reported in 2023, however, an increasing number of platforms have broadened the ability of rightholders to issue takedowns when publicity rights — the right to one’s name image likeness and voice — are violated, due to the rise of AI-generated deepfakes. This is done on a voluntary basis and is not required by law.
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Spotify added to these publicity rights protections just last month when it announced that it was strengthening its policies against negative uses of AI. This included increased protections around impersonation, and according to a source close to the situation, the platform’s impersonation rules did come into play with the takedowns for HAVEN.’s track specifically. The source adds that Spotify tends to side with the party that feels they have been deepfaked. (Spotify declined to comment.)
Now, HAVEN. is gearing up to release a re-recording of the song, featuring the vocals of a singer named Kaitlin Aragon. She was discovered by the team after posting a TikTok video, covering “I Run” which sounds fairly similar to the original. The hope is, for HAVEN.’s team, that they can recapture the same buzz as they achieved with the last version of the song and restart HAVEN.’s career — but this time, with human vocals.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 Warner Music Group and Stability AI have formed a strategic partnership to advance what they’re calling “responsible AI in music creation.” The companies say the alliance, announced Wednesday (Nov. 19), is designed to help build an ethical music ecosystem that supports artists and songwriters. The initiative will focus on building professional-grade tools […]
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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?
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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.)
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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?
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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.
