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Learnings from Wallifornia from a music tech PR agency: What is the future of AI?

Updated: Jul 23, 2023



The Wallifornia Music and Innovation Summit was held a few weeks ago in Liege, Belgium and there were some fascinating insights as a music tech PR agency on the future of AI in the music industry.


Many attendees had strong views on the role generative AI will play in the music industry. Che Pope, Founder at Wrkshp Media expressed his desire for AI to help with the quality of music over quantity. This is a huge issue in the music industry now as it is estimated there are now 120,000 new tracks hitting music streaming services each day and generative AI will only exacerbate this issue.

Less decisive role for AI, according to these music tech PR agency insights


Others such as Phazz were less impressed about the decisive role that generative AI will play, because ‘humans are always going to be the last link – we’ll always be the ones deciding what makes a good track’. Similarly, Helen Sartory, SVP of Creator Services at Beatport, reinforced the importance of finding the right message to communication which ultimately isn’t going to be found in AI.

Generative AI also led to a controversial debate around copyright and whether they could co-exist in the music industry. Cliff Fluet, Joint Head of Media & Entertainment at Lewis Silkin, seemed to think they could co-exist but reiterated that the industry needs ‘innovative and effective licensing’.


Music industry, metadata, and AI


Finally, Joshua Weikert, CTO at Cyanite talked about the role that Metadata can play in helping the industry prepare for the use of AI “metadata and the integration of it will enable you to segue into AI because it lays the foundation. It enables the music industry to think about AI in music”.


There were a lot more insights on the role of generative AI, but the reality is that it is in its infancy, and we still don’t know what the future holds. What we do know is that Goldman Sachs recently hinted that investor concern over AI is overstated and most companies are in good positions to protect their artists and IP.


Therefore, there is some optimism that AI won’t lead to the doomsday scenario many experts are predicting. Writing as a music tech PR agency, it's important for us to attend events like Wallifornia and be aware of the key industry issues.



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