As AI seeps into music—from holographic performances to machine-made tracks—are we risking the soul of creativity itself? The question isn’t if it’ll change music, but whether humanity will still have a place in it.

Last updated: 30th Oct 2025

Originally published: 16th Oct 2025

For decades, Hollywood has explored our fascination with artificial intelligence. From cyborgs modelled on Arnold Schwarzenegger, storming into bars in the buff, searching for clothes, boots, and motorcycles, to a cyberpunk Keanu Reeves dodging bullets from “agents” inside a machine-generated simulation. We know these characters well, because they’ve become cultural shorthand for AI: cold, calculating, compassionless, cast so often as villains precisely because of the fears they tap into. They are logic without feeling, power without conscience. 

Thankfully, when we consider the waking world, we’re not quite at the point where we need to get John Connor on the blower. But those films weren’t just action-packed blockbusters; they were cautionary tales, warning us of the dangers that come with unchecked technological advancement.

For a long time, that danger felt like something far off, part of a dystopian future we watched unfolding only on the big screen. But what once seemed like science fiction is increasingly becoming our reality. AI now hums quietly in the background of daily life. It automates our emails, calculates our expenses, steers us through traffic, and, in some cases, even takes the wheel. It speaks to us through smart speakers, curates our TV recommendations, and lurks inside our phones. And most troubling of all, it’s creeping into spaces once held sacred to the human spirit. Specifically, the arts. 

If culture is the expression of what it means to be human, then AI's assault on the music industry is something we cannot ignore. And for those of us who care deeply about music, alarm bells should be ringing.

Consider, for a moment, Rod Stewart’s recent One Last Time tour. What was meant to be a farewell celebration, marking the singer’s final world tour, became a lightning rod for controversy when Stewart filled giant screens with AI-generated versions of gone-too-soon icons: Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury, XXXTentacion, and, most controversially of all, Ozzy Osbourne, who had died just a few days earlier. Some saw it as a tribute, but many more found it tasteless and, in parts, exploitative, with the families of said icons questioning the legality of their loved ones’ likenesses being used without consent. Whether Stewart’s intentions were sincere almost doesn’t matter. The act itself sparked a torrent of questions about who controls artistic legacy in an era when an algorithm can reanimate the dead.

Visual AI platforms like OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s Veo and Runway make it frighteningly easy to create lifelike videos with almost no oversight. Musicians’ estates, already weary of battles over royalties, now face an even stranger threat: that images of their relatives could be conjured on stage by a machine, with no permission needed or pay-outs necessary. Lawmakers are only beginning to grapple with this. Proposals exist for “opt-out” models that would allow rights-holders to block their work from being scraped into training sets, but the speed of technological change makes the passing of legislation look painfully slow. For now, a legal grey zone persists, leaving intellectual property lawyers scratching their heads while artists and their families are left vulnerable.

The fallout isn’t just legal, either. It’s economic. Every time AI replaces the work of a human designer, technician or creative, livelihoods are at stake. The same technology once sold as a way to automate dull, menial tasks is now encroaching on some of the most creative jobs in the industry. Research already suggests that audiovisual professionals could see their incomes drop by as much as 20% in the next two years as generative AI takes hold. For small promoters and grassroots organisers, though, there is a silver lining: the cost of producing high-end visuals is dropping and opening up opportunities once reserved for stadium acts. But for those who have spent years honing their craft, the threat is existential.

The deeper issue here is authenticity. Fans pay for the inimitable energy and the atmosphere that live music provides, not only to hear songs they love but to be immersed in the originality of human creativity. When AI churns out sterile light shows, stitching together uncredited works, what exactly are audiences buying into? Fans at Electric Light Orchestra’s Over and Out farewell tour put it bluntly. One fan in particular said, ”With just an ounce more effort, there could have been far better visuals than this mushy, sterile, lifeless AI art.”

And visuals are only the start. Companies like Opsis are now experimenting with “emotion AI” systems that track audience reactions in real time, scanning faces to gauge whether fans are engaged, restless, or switching off. That data can then be fed back to performers, enabling them to adjust their set on the fly. Even artists such as Massive Attack have staged performances that mimic the use of this technology, as a way of critiquing the accelerating rise of surveillance-driven capitalism.

Yet by handing that judgement over to algorithms, we risk losing the unpredictability and human instinct that make curation - whether behind the decks or with a guitar in hand - so thrilling in the first place. The connection between artist and audience frays, and with it, the very essence of live music.

Push the idea a step further, and the questions get darker. What happens when the headliner isn’t real at all? Would ticket buyers be satisfied to mosh or dance to a hologram conjured from a few lines of code? The idea might sound laughable, but shows like ABBA Voyage have already normalised avatar-based performances. Festivals like Sónar in Barcelona and CTM in Berlin have also given stage time to AI collaborators. Slowly but surely, we’re all being adjusted to the idea of non-human performers. 

Now consider future generations growing up with AI artists and technology. Would they know any different? Those of generation Gamma or Delta - the generations born post-2030s - would surely be more likely to accept this as a norm and less of a novelty, as millennials did with social media and smartphones back in the noughties. This tech became social infrastructure, allowing people to connect, communicate and self-express with audiences across the world, eventually becoming, as we now know it, the default culture.

Recorded music isn’t safe either. It’s already awash with AI. Streaming platforms are flooded with machine-made tracks, some of which rack up millions of plays before most listeners even realise they aren’t human. The Velvet Sundown, Aventhis, and FN Meka - just a few AI artist names that would have been unthinkable a decade ago - are now part of playlists streamed by millions. Streaming platform, Deezer, recently reported that a third of all tracks uploaded to its platform daily are AI-generated, and while Spotify, Apple Music and others are less transparent, the industry consensus is clear: platforms are hosting vast catalogues of synthetic music.

On the surface, we could argue that if the music is good, does it really matter who or what made it? But the implications are far-reaching. These tracks are often an amalgamation of stolen works, which, once again, raises serious copyright concerns. There are already a handful of major music labels pursuing court proceedings specifically due to copyright infringements. More than that, we must question what happens if these AI artists become fully sentient, if that’s even possible? What if we lose control? Picture a future where streaming platforms are swamped with artificially conceived acts, each relentlessly churning out tracks by the hour, flooding your playlists with generic titles, all optimised for performance. This might sound absurd, but the risk that royalties become diluted for real human artists is real and could ultimately squeeze them further out of an already unforgiving industry.

AI tracks are cheaper to produce, easier to license, and require smaller teams. From a profit perspective, platforms have every incentive to favour them. And when algorithms that decide what you hear are already designed to maximise engagement, the shift towards machine-made music is almost inevitable.

For the listener, this might mean more choice, but for the artist, it means an ever-shrinking slice of the pie. Musicians who have devoted their lives to mastering instruments, writing lyrics, and honing their stagecraft risk being buried under an avalanche of disposable robot pop. The soul poured into their work - the hours of graft, the heartbreak, the humanity - could be drowned out by machine-generated noise. What little income they currently earn from streaming might vanish altogether, leaving only touring, ticket sales and merchandise as viable revenue streams. And with some ticket prices already at eye-watering highs, the burden may fall on fans to make up the difference.

This isn’t to say all use of AI in music is inherently negative. Some artists have embraced it as a collaborator rather than a competitor. Grimes and James Blake have worked with Endel to create personalised soundscapes. Timbaland has re-engineered his own beats using Suno’s tools, gleefully dubbing the system “Baby Timbo.” Will.i.am, co-founder of the Black Eyed Peas, turned swivel-chair TV music mogul, has described AI as his “co-pilot” for creativity. Even Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame has experimented with AI as a co-writer. For these artists, AI is a shiny new tool; something to sharpen their edge, not replace their craft.

Yet many others are not so optimistic. In 2024, more than 200 high-profile names, from Billie Eilish to Pearl Jam to Nicki Minaj, signed an open letter condemning what they saw as an “assault on human creativity.” Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and Annie Lennox joined a protest album - Is This What We Want? - consisting only of ambient recordings from empty studios, a haunting reminder of what music could become if copyright is left unprotected. Their message was clear: without boundaries, AI risks hollowing out music until nothing remains but lifeless sound.

Technology has always provoked backlash, however. When synthesisers arrived, purists declared the death of musicianship. Drum machines and sampling sparked outrage before becoming cornerstones of hip-hop and electronic music. But AI is different in both scale and autonomy. Old tools need human hands to program or play them. AI can now produce entire songs, lyrics and voices with minimal human input. That’s why so many are nervous. It isn’t just another instrument. It’s a potential replacement.

So, where do we draw the line? Is there an argument for artists using AI as a creative tool, to push their own ideas and the limits of music ever further - like Caribou does on Honey or Headache on The Head Hurts But The Heart Knows Better? Maybe. But AI artists built purely to churn out streams and generate profit for shareholders? Absolutely not. That belongs firmly in the bin. 

The future of music will depend on the choices we make as fans, as creators, as promoters. Every ticket bought, every record streamed, every act supported is a vote for the kind of culture we want to sustain.

If we continue handing over music’s creative heart to machines, we risk more than just jobs. We risk losing the spark that makes music matter in the first place. AI’s impact on real human artists, the creative economy, and the future of music itself are no longer distant concerns. Unlike the science fiction we grew up with on our TVs, this is anything but make-believe.

  

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Header image credit: Luke Perez / Groove Magazine (archive.org)