It’s becoming increasingly clear that major labels are dealing with AI-generated music’s rise by embracing and monetizing it, letting fans use carefully controlled versions of the technology to create variations on songs the labels control. In the process, they hope, they’ll generate more royalties. The latest evidence is a just-announced high-profile new deal between the world’s largest record company, Universal Music Group, and Spotify to “launch a new tool allowing fans to create covers and remixes of their favorite songs from participating artists and songwriters.”
The strategy, which would essentially turn artists’ work into a kind of digital Play-Doh, first became clear late last year, when Universal and Warner Music each settled lawsuits with the AI service Udio and struck deals to create a subscription service with the same kind of song-morphing capabilities. The Spotify deal extends that template onto the most popular streaming platform, and as with the prior announcements, Universal suggested that artists will be able to decide whether to allow their songs to be part of it.
A launch date for the tool has yet to be revealed, but it will be a “paid add-on for Spotify Premium subscribers,” according to the announcement, with participating artists and songwriters sharing in the revenue. In a statement, Spotify Co-CEO Alex Norström said the product is grounded in “consent, credit, and compensation” for the artists and songwriters who take part. Universal chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge called the initiative “firmly artist-centric, rooted in responsible AI.”
Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez pointed out to Rolling Stone in 2025 that these deals may also yield valuable data. “Maybe I’m a country singer, but people are trying to use me to make hip-hop,” Sanchez said. “That’s amazing. Maybe I wanna lean into that.”
Michael Nash, Universal’s chief digital officer, told Rolling Stone in 2025 that the company’s AI goals were to “center the conversation on artists, defend their rights and interests, and from that foundation build the creative and commercial opportunities out.” He cited research that a large percentage of music uploaded to social media has been, he said, “sped up, slowed down, mashed up, remixed” as evidence of the demand for the services the company is building.
Artists who opt into these plans “will have an opportunity to connect with fans on a platform where you’ll have enormous control over the parameters around that interaction, and then you will have significant economic participation,” he said, “as opposed to the current world in which there’s no control and there’s very little economic participation.”
Universal and Sony Music’s copyright-infringement lawsuits against the most popular AI-music service, Suno, are ongoing. Warner Bros. reached a settlement with Suno in November.
Blair Brown*
