Allegro

A.I. is moving at light speed

Here's a roundup of A.I. news & bulletins that musicians MUST put on their radar

Volume 125, No. 6June, 2025

Jerome Harris

This month’s A.I. article is by Jerome Harris, the interim chair of Local 802’s A.I. Committee.

For this issue of Allegro, I want to highlight several articles about generative A.I. in the music enterprise; together they provide views of the possible future for our profession.

Last November, the Paris-based non-profit International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers published a study of the worldwide economic impact of generative A.I. on the music and audiovisual industries over a five year timespan. (Read about the report here, where you can also download the full report and executive summary. And read press coverage here.)

The study found that by 2028 generative A.I. sound products will account for around 20 percent of global music streaming platforms’ revenues and around 60 percent of music libraries’ revenues. In turn, this could result in music creators losing 24 percent of revenue — about $11 billion — over the next five years. Clearly, this loss of income will not hit all countries, all types of music creation work or all genres equally (music recording is the obvious prime target), but the effects can be expected to ripple throughout the industry.

More recently, the CEO of the music technology firm Sonarworks presented his view of generative A.I.’s future effects on music production and the broader music enterprise, based on roughly 100 interviews that a team at his firm conducted with industry professionals, Grammy-winning engineers, artists and music listeners. His projections include:

A decrease over the next ten years in the relative share of human-produced recordings, coupled with an increase in the share of A.I.-assembled recordings. Notably, that first category includes work in which human creators used A.I. “assistance”; the second category includes background/”elevator” music-like sound products (my term) assembled by generative A.I. systems in real time — he expects such real-time systems to increasingly compete with streaming services;
“A.I. could reduce demand for human musicians in commercial industries such as advertising, film scoring, and background music production. Independent musicians may struggle to compete with an overwhelming flood of A.I.-generated content on streaming platforms, potentially leading to lower royalties and reduced visibility;”
“There will be an exponential boost in the amount of content produced, and the cost associated with production will decrease;”
“Less revenue will be captured by the legacy music industry. Big tech could generate new music-related revenue, however, that money will not flow downstream to artists, labels, and creatives as it used to.”

Lastly, I’ll mention an episode of the excellent twice-monthly “music and capitalism” podcast series Money 4 Nothing in which co-host Sam Backer discussed the landscape of AI and music with journalist Cherie Hu, head of the music-and-tech research operation Water & Music. Even though their conversation is from September 2023, it provides the most comprehensive overview that I’ve found: from basics like the diverse ways A.I. is being applied to music and the levels of investment by which Big Tech firms, to what the oncoming future holds.

Speaking of podcasts, the next episode of our Jazz Advisory Committee’s podcast series Pitch Perfect dives into how generative A.I. and related “datafication” are attacking the economic viability of composing and producing music recordings, and reshaping the experience of accessing and listening to recordings; the AFM’s director of government affairs presents our union’s perspective on navigating the legal and legislative responses. Stay tuned.

Jerome Harris, a member of Local 802 since 1979, is widely recognized as a unique musical stylist, garnering international acclaim for his incisive and versatile voice on both guitar and bass guitar. Read his full biography. If you are interested in the Local 802 A.I. committee, please send an e-mail to Local 802 Recording Vice President Harvey Mars at hmars@local802afm.org and A.I. Committee Interim Chair Jerome Harris at jeromeharr@aol.com. Send feedback on Local 802’s A.I. series to Allegro@Local802afm.org.