Artificial Intelligence is well on its way to becoming the future of music. Here’s our forecast.
Music for Advertising
This revenue source for human musicians and writers went away when paid music libraries became cost-effective and easy to use, particularly when the archaic legal jargon related to licensing and ownership was translated into easy-to-understand language for people and industries with no background in music.
Since the 2020s, the market has shifted further to free music libraries. For many, free music libraries are a “good enough” solution.
But for those who need a unique song or soundtrack, AI-generated music is already taking over the market from free and paid music libraries. While there is currently a minor cost involved when using the products of companies like Elevenlabs, the benefit is the creation of a song or soundtrack that’s unique and can quickly be even further customized with their easy-to-use interface.
Music for Movies
It’s the same for movies and long-form videos. However, the adoption rate will be faster because of the history of reducing music budgets by licensing music instead of retaining a human to write and record a score. Stanley Kubrick (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) specifically did this to reduce his music budget. And the soundtrack to James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” series is essentially Gunn’s playlist. Most movies will continue this trend by adopting AI-generated soundtracks as a cost-reduction strategy.
Music for Hit Songs
Writing and recording a hit/viral song is in about the same place as AI video was in 2022. Eventually, someone will code the AI version of Max Martin and his writing system, and AI will start churning out hits. While people like Scott Adams (Dilbert comic strips) have been very vocal, going as far as to say: “…humans will only care about “art” (including opinion) when they know it came from a human,” we forecast that 80% of hit music will become AI-generated during the next five years. It’s similar to the split between streaming music (84% of sales) vs vinyl sales (11% of sales). Convenience triumphs most other things.
As to Adam’s assertion, Neo Artificial Intelligence is involved in a project that will try to answer that question. Other projects have already been launched, including Grimes, who took one route, and the Noonoouri and Anna Indiana projects, which have taken a different direction.
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Noonoouri
Anna Indiana
New Opportunities for Human Musicians
Opportunities for human musicians include live performances of AI artists’ songs for people who desire to see concerts that include human performances. This new business opportunity is taking the concept of cover bands/tribute bands and teaming them with AI artists.
However, alternatives to human-led live performances will likely continue to grow through synthetic in-game performances (video games), virtual reality, and robots from Boston Dynamics and Tesla in the live performance space. We could soon see the first “dog band” featuring a live group of multiple “Spots” from Boston Dynamics.
Boston Dynamics
Certified Human Made
For human artists, there will continue to be that “vinyl” niche–people who are only interested in human-created art.
An Underwriters Laboratories (UL) meets Dolby certification system could be a new business opportunity. This system would attest that “this song was created, from conception, through writing, and recording 100% by humans.”
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