Let 1,000 AI Startups Bloom: Why the Time to Disrupt the Music Industry Is Now [Kyle Bylin]

Former Hypebot editor Kyle Bylin argues that artificial intelligence will soon revolutionize the music industry even more than past innovations like MP3s and streaming.

AI tools will enable anyone to create music easily, says Bylin, and music companies must embrace this disruption and allow innovative AI startups to flourish, or they risk falling behind.

By Kyle Bylin

1. The AI Music Revolution

As the music industry progresses, reflecting on the past, considering the present, and anticipating the future have all become customary. Those customs share a common goal—to predict the direction of the industry and how it will be influenced by technological, cultural, and societal trends.

Yet the most significant industry discussion revolves around artificial intelligence (AI) and how it will fundamentally revolutionize music. I say this as a music listener who closely witnessed the digital music revolution and a technology writer who covered the streaming and smartphone era. Drawing on that background, I’ve decided to make some bold predictions about the future of the music industry and how it will be fundamentally revolutionized by AI in the next decade.

“AI is a general-purpose technology that will transform society. It’s not a trend like so many other things that explode and go bust. Rather, it’s a disruptive computing revolution that’s rapidly gaining momentum.”

However, I acknowledge not everyone will agree. Some predictions may even be flawed or wrong. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the rapidly approaching AI music revolution. And by “we,” I mean music industry professionals; music performers, creators, and artists, including songwriters and producers; and passionate and fanatic listeners. We must embrace the revolution, not resist it.

We must empower the next generation of innovators, artists, and fans to shape the future of AI music before a cohort of enterprising entrepreneurs, college students, or virtual natives do it for us. Artificial intelligence is set to cause more disruption in the music industry than the MP3, file-sharing, digital music players, digital audio workstations, music streaming, and social media—combined and at the same time.

AI is a general-purpose technology that will transform society. It’s not a trend like so many things that explode and go bust. Rather, it’s a disruptive computing revolution that’s rapidly gaining momentum.

Everyone Is a Music Creator Now

AI will totally change the music business and create a new one, whether by choice or force. The notion of artist-created music being the best will become outdated as fans gain powerful AI tools to create their own incredible songs. It won’t matter whether an artist or a fan creates the next viral song on TikTok (or whatever the next AI-powered social platform will be). What will matter is that the song captures the moment, speaks to the desires and minds of a generation, and has something to say about the larger events happening in society.

With mainstream artists distancing themselves from politics to avoid offending anyone, creators will take the lead in creating music reflecting their beliefs and opinions. The heydays of major record labels, music television, radio stations, record stores, and music venues controlling what people listen to are long gone. What’s left will only continue to be further disrupted.

“While megastar artists like Taylor Swift will still be around, the competition for our attention is growing at warp speed. In the future, anyone can be a ‘musician,’ and the music industry will have to compete with them for time and attention.”

With the rise of digital music stores and streaming services, artists, creators, and fans alike have started producing increasingly more music at an ever-increasing pace. While megastar artists like Taylor Swift will still be around, the competition for our attention is growing at warp speed.

In the future, anyone can be a “musician,” and the music industry will have to compete with them for time and attention. As progress continues, we can expect a world where everything is personalized through algorithms and where everyone can create and share their own music with the world. The debate about who can create music and what music should be is stopped before it even starts.

Human culture has shown that anyone can be creative and has the potential to create music, regardless of what the music industry, publishers, labels, analysts, or writers think. Over many decades, however, music-making has now become professionalized and corporatized, but the current state isn’t how culture should operate. We must recognize that there should be room for anyone who wants to create music and be recognized for their unique abilities and talents.

Everyone Will Be Everything Now

We’re returning to a culture where everyone is musical. Everyone is a musician. Everyone is a singer. Everyone is a songwriter. Everyone is a producer. Everyone is a rapper. Hell, everyone will become a music blogger, too. And if you think you won’t live to see Eminem battle rap an AI and lose, then you’re badly missing out on—and failing to take advantage of— the huge changes happening now.

“With the rise of generative AI, anyone with a smartphone, tablet, or computer will have access to music-making tools. Pro Tools and its next-generation equivalent will come standard with AI built into every part of the software and plugins.”

Wide-spread music-making democratization is already happening—not just in creation, production, and distribution, but also in the ability to reach people globally through independent music marketing, distribution, streaming, and retailing. With the rise of generative AI, anyone with a smartphone, tablet, or computer will have access to music-making tools. Pro Tools and its next-generation equivalent will come standard with AI built into every part of the software and plugins. That access will allow anyone to create music without necessarily knowing how it’s made. A new form of music will emerge as a result.

Importantly, fans are not concerned with what Billboard or the Grammy Awards think of AI music or about what music is or isn’t. The next generation of fans will create ways to celebrate culture and track new forms of music. After all, anyone can use AI to create—in mere seconds—a website and blog, and start writing about what they love and publishing perfect, AI-edited articles.

Soon enough, the next-generation websites and blogging platforms will have a music-writing mode included with the service, which also encompasses food, movies, TV, or other forms of culture. With AI-generated tools, music can be created and marketed without requiring extensive knowledge of the music business or even design skills. Aspiring artists can consult AI assistants for marketing advice and exchange tips on social media platforms.

We’ll soon enter an AI era where algorithms dictate what music is seen inside the infinite stream and by whom, based on complex calculations. No one will be positioned to say what constitutes good music anymore.

2. A Brief History of Music Revolutions

I am a music listener who grew up in North Dakota in the 1990s and 2000s. During that period, major record labels coordinated broadcast radio stations, big-box retailers, and music television to create a monoculture of consumers united through a shared taste in music (which just happened to be whatever labels wanted to promote). I witnessed the era of music corporatization era firsthand.

Truthfully, I didn’t understand the vast implications of this era until I read two books: Steve Knopper’s classic book Appetite for Self-Destruction and Greg Kot’s seminal book Ripped.

Then, when I was in middle school, the digital music revolution began.

Suddenly, anyone with a 28 kbit/s dial-up modem could download songs from the internet for free. Anyone could also burn copies of that music and distribute them to friends. (I did this, too.) Soon after, digital music players (e.g., iPod and Zune) became hugely popular and enabled anyone to download thousands of songs using high-speed internet and then fill an entire iPod. These so-called “digital natives” never entered a store to buy CDs or logged into iTunes. (I still bought hundreds of CDs, though.)

Next, I witnessed the rise of subscription music streaming services, which made the infinite jukebox era possible. The web became a music collection without a beginning, middle, or end. And suddenly, the entire history of recorded music could be discovered, heard, and shared on your desktop or laptop computer. Shortly afterward, smartphones emerged. Then along came apps, which everyone downloaded to discover, consume, experience, and share music in new ways.

As that next revolution of listening unfolded, it carried the music industry into the present. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Prime Music, Deezer, Sirius XM, and Pandora, among others, have created the streaming landscape that we’ve become familiar with today—resulting in the music streaming revolution.

The Coming Wave of AI-Generated Music

Artificial intelligence will transform music creation, production, recording, and distribution. The way music is marketed and advertised will also be transformed. As a result, AI will hugely impact how music is distributed, discovered, consumed, shared, and experienced.

No matter what the music industry wants to do or how it thinks it can dictate the terms of the AI revolution, the reality is that the changes are coming fast.

“A new creative class will subsequently emerge that uses AI to not just create and produce new music, but also distribute and market music to the next generation of fans.”

Rather than trying to keep the genie inside the bottle, the music industry must be vigilant and recognize how technology will disrupt the music business and start investing in the next generation of startups. Those startups will empower music listeners to become creators.

A new creative class will subsequently emerge that uses AI to not just create and produce new music, but also distribute and market music to the next generation of fans. Fans will then remix, change, and comment on the music using the new AI tools.

Major, indie, and DIY artists will quickly be joined by music creators on AI platforms where anyone anywhere can create songs in their free time and seek an audience. That shift means, going forward, every artist in the world will now compete for attention with every creator on the platforms.

An Unprecedented Era of Disruption

No one doubts that Taylor Swift will continue to garner a football stadium-sized audience and be a global superstar for life. But we must recognize that, in the AI revolution, the next Taylor Swift will not be Taylor Swift.

Some enterprising musicians, fans, producers, underground rappers, heavy metal artists, or aspiring country artists—or some confluence of all these genres—will leverage the next generation of AI-fueled and powered music creation production and distribution tools.

With those tools, anyone will be able to enter the conversation and distribute their music through algorithms on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and any other social media platform. Then, if the music catches attention and says something—and if it speaks to the next generation—it will go viral and gain an audience.

With an audience, those creators can then focus even more on their music. They can get even better at perfecting the art of creating hits quickly rather than releasing a few blockbuster hit songs over time and at collaborating with others attempting to make the same type of music.

“The AI music revolution will be unprecedented in scale. In fact, the revolution will be much bigger than the digital or file-sharing revolution and instead create change in the music industry and broader culture that will be unlike anything we have ever seen.”

The AI music revolution will be unprecedented in scale. In fact, the revolution will be much bigger than the digital or file-sharing revolution and instead create change in the music industry and broader culture that will be unlike anything we have ever seen. People forget that today’s professional class of musicians is a relic of a time when music was recorded onto a cylinder and distributed in a store. Copyright protections allowed people to make money from that music and grow rich from the sales of recordings.

In the modern era, musicians still record and capture songs in files and then collect revenue through streaming those songs, building an audience, and touring venues throughout the country. We can see on TikTok that, in the past five years, artists have gone viral like they used to on YouTube. And just like that, new artists can also be plucked from obscurity and thrown into mainstream conversation overnight, mere seconds after having a viral hit.

3. The Siren Song of Music Revolutionaries

Historically, the news of a giant company conducting a massive round of layoffs didn’t have any professional or personal context. The headlines announced layoffs, but I didn’t know anyone impacted.

Nowadays, however, if a technology firm or music company does layoffs, my long-time close friend and former podcast co-host—former Billboard music editor and current XR thought leader and experience producer Cortney Harding—will shoot me a text, sharing that a bunch of people got laid off.

The huge difference today is that I’ll start to see people post about the layoff on LinkedIn. Friends and acquaintances—people I did an informational interview or grabbed a coffee chat with a few years ago—will post about the news, their appreciation, and their gratitude for the time at the company and the team they worked alongside. Put simply, the human impact of layoffs has become more real. And if you’re anything like me, you can feel yourself tense up when you see these LinkedIn posts.

“It’s my hope that those laid off by Spotify decide to be founders in the next generation of AI music websites, apps, and platforms. The reality is that music startups have grown stagnant in recent years.”

If it’s not already obvious, I’m writing about the recent layoffs that rocked Spotify and resulted in roughly 1,500 people looking for jobs, according to some estimates. It’s my hope that those laid off by Spotify decide to be founders in the next generation of AI music websites, apps, and platforms. The reality is that music startups have grown stagnant in recent years. Plus, new innovative startups are fewer in number, with far longer pauses between launches.

Yes, it’s true that venture capital has been scarce because the music technology sector has produced hundreds, if not thousands, of losers and only a handful of winners. Yes, it’s hard to innovate and disrupt a sector that counts Google, Amazon, Apple, and SiriusXM as competitors. And I bet there are a hundred other ways I could cast doubt on the music technology sector and point to the dark clouds that hang over it.

Why Not You? Why Not Now?

Here’s my pitch to the laid-off Spotify employees: Why not you, and why not now?

Why don’t you think hard about all the things you wished your former employer would do and then just do them? I’m sure many of you walked to each other’s cubicles or went for lunch or drinks with colleagues. Many of you talked breathlessly about your work and how cool it would be if Spotify decided to execute your idea and bring it to the masses of music fans on the platform.

So why not use this setback as an opportunity and determine a game plan for how you and your friends could develop a next-generation AI music technology startup? Daniel Ek started chipping away at building Spotify around 2006, and look what it has become over time.

Today, the AI revolution is already fully underway, and music will be the canary in the coal mine that it always seems to be. The next few decades could make the copyright wars seem like a quaint era compared to the coming AI revolution in music.

“The Spotify layoffs could be the moment that helped the next generation of music startups bloom. The layoffs could even be the catalyst for the next Pandora, Spotify, TikTok, or something entirely new to rise from the ashes.”

It’s still the early days, so it’s hard to make predictions about how things will unfold. That said, the Spotify layoffs could be the moment that helped the next generation of music startups bloom. The layoffs could even be the catalyst for the next Pandora, Spotify, TikTok, or something entirely new to rise from the ashes.

Spotify laid off 1,500 people, and its efforts to expand into podcasting and audiobooks failed to gain enough traction to generate growth and capture people’s attention. These conditions reveal how this era of music is beginning to plateau. Now, roughly 1,500 more people are on the job market with deep experience in streaming music, product management, data, and UX design and research, among many other areas of expertise.

Some of these people will launch startups, develop companies, and enact new business initiatives that leverage all the emerging technologies, including AI.

Those entrepreneurs will create the next generation of music creation, production, discovery, streaming, and marketing, among many other things. It will, however, take many years for the right people to get in place, for the venture capital funding to find the right startups, and for these companies and initiatives to find an audience.

Still, we should not mistake current and ongoing changes as just a sign of the times. They instead signal that a new revolution is happening—one fueled by AI.

Spotify, the world’s largest streaming company, is seemingly out of ideas and unsure how to grow or compete effectively with TikTok. Not to mention, Spotify just released 1,500 talented people into the market who will create the change they believe in and want to see. And they’ll do so despite, for whatever reason, not being able to make it happen at Spotify.

Meanwhile, the thousands of talented people left behind at Spotify are missing their friends and colleagues. Those left behind will themselves soon start eyeing the company’s exit doors, thinking about what comes next. They, too, might join the ranks of the music tech startup founders. They, too, might join the ranks of record labels, concert promoters, talent management companies, and other powerful players in the game to create the technological change that they see—that they know is possible—and that they believe is the future of music, with or without Spotify.

4. Let 1,000 AI Music Startups Bloom

Here’s my passionate plea to anyone who will listen: It’s time to let 1,000 AI music technology startups bloom. Let them usher in the next wave of the AI music revolution.

In fact, we should avoid anything else that holds back progress or anyone who attempts to sue companies out of existence and prevent the fiefdom that the music industry has created from being dismantled and deployed in new ways.

No one wants to be on the wrong side of history or the wrong side of the technological revolution that will happen in music.

Whether we like it or not, the movie studios and the TV stations managed to prevent their industry from fully embracing streaming and to lock down their content in a way that music could not. That success in one industry but not the other is why you can stream any song you want on Spotify, but Netflix, Hulu, and its rivals have limited collections.

The Music Catalog Isn’t Analog

I challenge you to consider a few things. No one can prevent songs from being downloaded from YouTube. No one can prevent them from being uploaded into AI music startup tools, whether they exist on the public web or the dark web. And no one is going to stop people from mixing, changing, and shaping culture in new and unprecedented ways that are realistic and convincing.

If the Beatles can come out with a new song that brings music back to life that people thought they would never hear again, then wait until the next three to five years play out. Eventually, every single artist ever recorded will have its own Tupac moment where, for some reason, the catalog never ends.

Not everyone can be successful, though. Nor will all remixes and mashups be approved by the music industry. However, fans don’t care about approval. The music industry will most likely use Content ID and other ways to control culture and prevent the distribution of any new songs.

“Every song ever recorded will soon be ripped down to stems and rebuilt in any way that fans can imagine. With the help of AI, new music can be created that sounds good and resonates with people.”

At the same time, music publishers and rights holders need to find new ways to profit from the use of their music instead of being the sole judges and protectors of music catalogs. Every song ever recorded will soon be ripped down to stems and rebuilt in any way that fans can imagine. With the help of AI, new music can be created that sounds good and resonates with people.

Eventually, AI technology will advance to the point where it can write music, not just lyrics. This advancement could even lead to people creating AI bands as a hobby. Those who doubt the ability of AI to become a talented songwriter are underestimating the true potential of this technology.

At its core, artificial intelligence is a general-purpose technology, much like electricity, and how it enabled innovations in the music industry, such as the phonograph, record player, and electrified amplifiers. AI will totally revolutionize the way music is created, produced, and consumed—allowing anyone to become a musician, producer, rapper, songwriter, and more.

Embrace and Create the Chaos

Record labels are poised for a rude awakening once they realize the next generation of artists won’t even want a standard record contract. Instead, they’ll use AI music marketing and management assistants to get advice on promoting their music to larger audiences.

Interestingly, though, most people today still live in a world where they think people should read Don Passman’s book Everything That You Need to Know about the Music Business or Ari Herstand’s popular book How to Make It in the New Music Business. But AI tools have enabled all this knowledge—all the ideas ever expressed in the history of the internet—to meet artists where they’re at in their careers. Those tools will give artists tailored advice on how to reach the next stage in their careers, both physically and digitally.

I’d argue that the music industry might need to humble itself and realize that business as usual is not an option. How the business has worked—from the phonograph to vinyl record, to tape cassette, to CD, to MP3, and to streaming—will be radically different once the AI music revolution fully takes shape. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see an AI Music Awards Show in the next ten years or an AI-only artist who gains hundreds of millions of listeners on Spotify.

“Ultimately, the music industry must determine how it’ll respond to the coming AI music revolution and choose the right side of technological history. Now is also the time for the industry to look at the talent on the market and pick the next step.”

I’ve outlined some things that AI makes possible but will bring shifts that no one could’ve foreseen. Ultimately, the music industry must determine how it’ll respond to the coming AI music revolution and choose the right side of technological history. Now is also the time for the industry to look at the talent on the market and pick the next step.

Will the industry take Roundup herbicide to the next wave of AI music startups, try to kill all the beautiful flowers, and see what happens when pirates create their own AI tools? Or will the industry want to invest in and let 1,000 AI music startups bloom and create chaos? Only the latter will allow the industry itself to revolutionize music culture. The alternative is to sit around and tell everyone how they ought to consume music because the industry makes money every time a fan clicks the play button.

Will the industry take Roundup herbicide to the next wave of AI music startups, try to kill all the beautiful flowers, and see what happens when pirates create their own AI tools? Or will the industry want to invest in and let 1,000 AI music startups bloom and create chaos? Only the latter will allow the industry itself to revolutionize music culture. The alternative is to sit around and tell everyone how they ought to consume music because the industry makes money every time a fan clicks the play button.

“Only then can the next generation of AI-powered music platforms and experiences that will move the industry forward be developed to meet the needs of a new virtual and AI-native generation.”

The music industry will be revolutionized by AI. That’s a fact, one that will ultimately be a good thing despite the challenging moments that will surely occur.

And this time around, the record labels and music publishers must embrace and create the chaos. They must plant and water the seeds of their own technological disruption. And they must do so while working alongside music technology startup founders to create a viable and profitable roadmap for the future.

Only then can the next generation of AI-powered music platforms and experiences that will move the industry forward be developed to meet the needs of a new virtual and AI-native generation.

The time for the AI music revolution is now.

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Kyle Bylin is a veteran technology trends analyst and user experience researcher.

Bylin began his career as a writer and editor at Hypebot.com before joining Billboard Magazine as the Social Chart Manager. He has also worked as a Lead Technology Writer and User Experience Researcher at Live Nation Labs, the former corporate innovation group for Live Nation Entertainment.

In addition, Bylin has conducted user research for various apps, including Hound, a pioneering virtual assistant developed by SoundHound AI; Scout FM, an innovative voice-controlled podcast app acquired by Apple in 2020; and Bushel, a leading digital platform that connects farmers and agribusinesses.

As an author, Bylin has edited and published three collections of essays: Divergent Streams, Promised Land, and Song Stories. These works focus on how technology has reshaped the music industry and deepened intimacy with songs. He has also been featured as a source in media outlets, including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, Marketplace Money, MTV News, and the Chicago Tribune.

Bylin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Business from Berklee College of Music. Currently, he is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Information Science at the School of Information of the University of Michigan. His focus is on user research, community engagement, library science, and technology clusters.