There is an old rule in the music business. Whenever somebody starts talking about innovation, we must follow the money…

Last month, Spotify and Universal Music Group announced a new licensing agreement that will allow Spotify Premium subscribers to create AI-generated covers and remixes using songs from participating Universal artists and songwriters.

The announcement was announced in the language we have come to expect from both the tech and music industries: consent, credit, compensation, creativity, fandom and opportunity, all the good things coming to us like a gift we didn’t know we needed.

“Solving hard problems for music is what Spotify does, and fan-made covers and remixes are next. What we’re building is grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artists and songwriters that take part. Through each technological transformation, we have worked together with Sir Lucian and his team to evolve the music ecosystem into a richer, more beneficial experience for fans and a more rewarding outcome for artists and songwriters,” said Alex Norström, Co-CEO, Spotify.

“The most valuable innovations in the music business always bring artists and fans closer together. That principle is at the heart of this pioneering AI-enabled superfan initiative, which is designed to support human artistry, deepen fan relationships, and create additional revenue opportunities for artists and songwriters. Building on our long track record of leading the industry through technology changes, and collaborating with Alex, Gustav, Daniel and the team at Spotify, this initiative is firmly artist-centric, rooted in responsible AI, and will drive growth for the entire ecosystem,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group.

Sounds good, right?

The problem is that none of them answer the questions artists, songwriters and managers should be asking.

Who gets to say yes?

Who gets to say no?

Who gets paid?

And perhaps most importantly, who is actually in control once their music enters the machine?

For the past three years the music industry has largely positioned artificial intelligence as an external threat. Record labels launched legal actions. There is a great site here that tracks the lawsuits. It is a vast live tracker of music industry AI lawsuits in 2026. From Suno, Udio, Anthropic cases, settlement status, and what the Sony fair-use ruling means for artists.

Then we have the Artists who signed open letters back in 2024. Industry organisations warned that AI companies were scraping and training models on copyrighted music without permission. The battle lines appeared simple. On one side stood creators. On the other stood technology companies racing ahead of regulation.

This deal changes the conversation entirely as Spotify and Universal are no longer talking about how to stop AI. They are talking about how to commercialise it, because if a major label can make more money from the artists, they surely will go to great lengths to do just that.

The arrival of AI in music has already happened. It has been flooding streaming platforms, social media feeds and video-sharing sites for years. What makes this deal significant is that two of the most powerful companies in music have decided that the future is not about resisting AI but building a business model around it.

From a commercial perspective, the logic is obvious as Spotify has spent years searching for new revenue streams beyond traditional subscriptions. The company has been increasingly vocal about the value of so-called “superfans”, listeners willing to pay extra for exclusive experiences and deeper engagement with artists.

AI-generated remixes and covers fit perfectly into that strategy.

Instead of simply listening to music, fans become participants. Creation itself becomes a product. Universal’s incentives are equally clear.

If AI-generated music is going to happen regardless, and there is little evidence to suggest it can be stopped, then the smartest move is to ensure it happens inside a licensed ecosystem rather than outside one. Better to collect a share of the revenue than spend the next decade fighting an unwinnable war against technology eh?

I mean, when you look at it that way, the agreement makes perfect business sense. Whether it makes sense for artists is another matter entirely.

The most important word in the announcement is not AI either; it is participation.

Groundbreaking responsible AI tool to launch as paid add-on for Spotify Premium users: Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) today announced landmark recorded music and music publishing licensing agreements enabling Spotify to launch a new tool allowing fans to create covers and remixes of their favorite songs from participating artists and songwriters.

The deal repeatedly refers to “participating artists and songwriters”, suggesting that creators will have some degree of choice over whether their work is included. On the surface, yeah, that sounds reassuring. Few people would argue against artists having the right to decide how their music is used.

Yet participation is only the beginning of the conversation here. Some questions that come to my mind:

What exactly are artists agreeing to?

Can a songwriter approve a remix while refusing permission for lyrical changes?

Can an artist allow their catalogue to be reinterpreted without allowing their voice to be replicated?

Can permissions be withdrawn if an artist becomes uncomfortable with how the technology evolves?

The music business has a long history of presenting broad consent as meaningful control. And conflating the two, which are not always the same thing.

A signature on a contract is not the same as ongoing approval.

Artists know this better than anyone.

Many of the contracts signed in previous decades never anticipated streaming, social media, short-form video or artificial intelligence. Yet those same agreements continue to shape how music is exploited today. That is why the details matter far more than the press release in these scenarios.

My concern, as ever, is the artist. I have very little doubt that the labels have already ensured their own interests, and arses, are well protected. Whether creators enjoy the same level of protection is another question entirely.

History suggests they often do not.

We only need to look at previous technological shifts. From the transition to digital downloads, to streaming, to social media and short-form video, the commercial frameworks were usually established long before artists fully understood the implications. The platforms grew. The corporations adapted. The lawyers got to work.

Even today, countless musicians remain tied to contracts signed before streaming became the dominant way people consumed music. Some are still arguing over royalty rates and rights that were negotiated for a completely different era.

So forgive me if I am less interested in the headlines than the small print.

Another issue is quality.

The technology sector has always operated on the premise that volume equals value. By now, one would have hoped the music business had learned otherwise. It appears that lesson has yet to land.

Streaming has given listeners access to more music than any generation in history. Yet abundance has created a new problem. According to Luminate, roughly 100,000 new tracks are uploaded every day.

Millions of songs enter the market each month, while the overwhelming majority fail to attract meaningful listenership. In today’s attention economy, artists are not only competing with one another. They are competing with an industrial-scale flood of content.

At least from where I am sitting, AI risks supercharging a problem that already exists.

Today, artists compete for attention in a market flooded with content. Tomorrow, a single track could generate thousands of AI-created remixes, genre shifts, translations and derivative versions almost instantly.

Some may unlock genuinely exciting creative possibilities. But let’s call it what it is: most will end up jostling for space in a marketplace that is already struggling under the weight of its own abundance.

We should probably pause for a moment and ask a fairly obvious question. Is producing more music actually creating more value?

Streaming has already given us access to more music than any generation in history could reasonably listen to in a lifetime. Yet discoverability remains one of the industry’s biggest challenges.

More songs did not magically create more listeners and more releases did not automatically create more careers. In many cases, they just created more competition for the same finite amount of attention.

Judging by the streaming era, the answer is far from certain.

There is a tendency within technology circles to confuse quantity with creativity. The assumption seems to be that if something can be produced at scale, it must therefore be valuable. The music business, of all industries, should know better by now.

Music has never been valuable because it is abundant. Music is valuable because it is meaningful. The emotional connection listeners feel towards an artist does not come from infinite variations of a song. It comes from the belief that somebody, somewhere, had something worth saying.

Maybe this will become a genuinely positive development for artists? Maybe it will create new income streams, deepen fan engagement and open up creative possibilities none of us have thought of yet.

I would be delighted to be wrong.

But the music business has never been short on grand promises or shiny new opportunities. What it has often been short on is meaningful protection for the people creating the work in the first place.

So while everyone else gets excited about the technology, I’ll be doing what I’ve always done: reading the small print and asking who really benefits when the dust settles.

Words: Linda Coogan Byrne