The woke music machine is diving headfirst into artificial intelligence — and dragging the industry with it. Warner Music just settled its copyright lawsuit with AI company Udio and is now partnering with them to launch a full-blown AI song-generation platform in 2026.
The pitch? “New revenue streams.” The reality? More synthetic music built by algorithms trained on real artists’ work.
Udio says its new subscription service will be powered by “licensed and authorized” songs, but this is the same company accused — along with its rival Suno — of copying hundreds of tracks from major musicians to train their systems. Labels initially warned these AI platforms would “drown out” human artists. Now they’re signing on.
And it’s not just Warner. Universal settled with Udio last month, even as both Udio and Suno continue facing accusations of ripping off the very catalogues they claim to “protect.”
Meanwhile, the public is getting flooded with artificial tracks. Platforms like Deezer have already been forced to flag AI-generated music because listeners can’t tell the difference. One survey even found 97% of people can’t distinguish real songs from AI copies.
That’s the future the corporate music machine is building — replacing artists with algorithms while pretending it’s “innovation.”
The same companies that spent a year warning AI would destroy the industry are now cashing in on it. And if listeners can’t spot the difference between human and machine, the labels clearly don’t mind. They’ll just own the machines.
The AI land grab is here — and real musicians are the ones getting pushed out.
