Universal Music Group is at the forefront of the music industry’s response to the emergence of generative AI technologies, making all kinds of moves over the past two years.
It has been a key figure in lobbying campaigns, including setting out principles for responsible AI. It has signed deals with AI startups and worked with YouTube on that platform’s AI efforts. And it is one of the plaintiffs in the first music-industry lawsuits against GenAI companies: Suno and Udio on the labels side and Anthropic on the publishing side.
Today at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, UMG’s EVP and chief digital officer Michael Nash gave a keynote address on the company’s vision for AI collaboration. Naturally, Music Ally tuned in.
“We believe that AI can be instrumental to the future of music. However, it’s critical to emphasise that AI will realise its potential to transform the future of music through the voices and visions of artists,” said Nash.
“Yes, of course the scope of technological disruption may be unprecedented with AI, but that doesn’t change a fundamental truth: it’s artists who’ve always shaped global culture… and that’s why Universal’s strategy on AI is based on a simple philosophy. Centre the conversation on artists; defend their rights and interests; and from that foundation, forge new creative and commercial opportunities.”
Nash reiterated UMG’s position that creative collaboration between the music and tech industries must be based on a foundation of copyright and associated rights.
“It’s essential that we energetically defend our artists’ interests. You can’t forge new business models with non-rights. If you don’t claim a seat at the dinner table, you might wind up on the menu,” he warned.
“Working from our philosophy, we believe that market based solutions are the answer. We have enabled numerous entrepreneurs, and we’re working with a wide range of major tech platforms in announced partnerships, and with significant licensing deals in the works.”
(Could this be a reference to Suno and Udio, who were recently reported to be in talks with all three major labels, having been sued by them last year? Watch this space…)
Nash also took aim at what he sees as a “deeply flawed” anti-copyright premise of some AI industry commentators.
“Copyright is not the enemy of innovation, quite the opposite. Media-tech convergence, predicated on respect for copyright, has produced a multi-trillion euros economy,” he said, dating this back to Apple’s iPod and iTunes in 2003 as the blueprint.
“Now, Google, Amazon, Meta, and many other companies are following in various ways with their own music and content strategies. Tech collaboration with the creative community, respecting the value of artists’ work and harnessing their innovation, has produced enormous cultural and economic benefit,” he said.
This is a lineage that UMG hopes will continue into the AI era with more creative collaborations between the tech and music worlds.
“The future of AI music will not be the regurgitation of derivative knockoffs of artists’ music to cannibalise their current marketplace. Who wants that? It will be activated by putting new tools in the hands of artists so they can expand the market, and create new experiences for their fans,” said Nash.
He pointed to UMG’s work with several creative-community alliances, including helping to launch the Human Artistry Campaign, and its deals with AI startups including Soundlabs, Hooky, Supertone, Klay Vision and ProRata in various fields.
(For anyone curious about Klay Vision, which is the stealthiest of the startups so far, Nash said that the company is “developing exciting new models, leveraging generative AI for hyper-personalisation and deeper fan engagement”.)
Nash finished off by running through some artist projects that have used AI including The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then’, which used stem-separation technology to unlock a John Lennon demo to be completed by the surviving members of the group, and the wellness-focused Sound Therapy project with Apple.
Finally, he showed footage of a new project: a music video from Keith Urban for his ‘Straight Lines’ song that uses GenAI video tool Moonvalley and “other ethically-trained tools” to train a custom AI model using photos and videos of Urban over the years, in order to insert him into any scene “with control and consistency”.
“We believe that AI can be instrumental to our future, and that it’s the artists who will continue to shape global culture, channelling disruption into transformation, as they have always done,” said Nash by way of conclusion.
“AI innovation can drive music culture, and in so doing generate even greater benefits to the quality of life on this planet.”
In a panel following his keynote, Nash also discussed the big AI-music story of the last fortnight: the emergence of The Velvet Sundown, an AI-generated band with AI-generated music.
“It’s maybe a conceptual project. There’s been a lot of publicity around that,” he said. “Because of all the publicity they have more than a million listeners on Spotify. That would not break them into the top 10,000 acts in terms of the size of monthly listening, because these are huge platforms that have tremendous volume.”
Nash also dropped some stats from UMG’s latest research into consumer attitudes towards AI and music.
“About half of consumers are interested in AI in music, but that’s mostly in terms of the utility of the [streaming] service,” he said. “They want to have better discovery: better organisation of recommendations, better interaction with the content.”
He also said that the group of consumers most interested in AI still articulate “what we would call a moral code… 75% say real artists matter the most!”
