The answer to AI in music isn’t suppression. It’s data

When the NFL and Apple Music announced Bad Bunny as the 2026 Super Bowl half-time show headliner, the choice surprised some. But to anyone tracking the data over the past few years, it was inevitable. In 2022, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti redefined the market, driving Latin music’s streaming growth to new heights. It later became the first Spanish-language album nominated for Grammy Album of the Year. The takeaway is simple: When you have accurate, real-time data, you don’t guess where culture is going, you know. That kind of foresight is exactly what industries need now, especially as AI accelerates change at a pace that demands evidence, not instinct.

In real time, we’re watching AI fundamentally reshape the economics of music, and much of the industry is still arguing that maybe it shouldn’t exist at all. The discourse surrounding AI and music is filled with necessary debates, from copyright infringement and artist compensation to vocal cloning and authenticity. These concerns are valid and must be addressed. But while the industry argues about whether AI should change music, our data shows it already is. Some of the resulting evolution has relevant precedent for reference. Some of it requires urgent action. Reliable information, detection, and measurement is required to make sense of it all.

Here to stay

Whether we like it or not, AI music is here to stay, and rather than fighting it, we should understand its benefits as a tool for artists—either to amplify existing production processes or to introduce new ways of designing music. Recent data from Luminate’s consumer research shows that 44% of U.S. music listeners say they’re uncomfortable with AI-created songs. But discomfort doesn’t predict behavior. The AI artist Xania Monet (created by Music Designer Telisha Jones) averaged 8 million weekly global on-demand audio streams in October, following her debut on multiple Billboard charts, including Hot Gospel Songs with “Let Go, Let Go” and Hot R&B Songs with “How Was I Supposed to Know?” Monet’s songs touch on emotional healing, life lessons, and heartbreak, pointing to the argument that music at its essence is how it makes you feel and not how it’s made. This conflicting tension between initial consumer attitudes and actual listening habits is not new.

Consider what happened with auto-tune. In 2009, Jay-Z released “D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune),” declaring war on the technology. That same year, The Black Eyed Peas released “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling,” both anchored by auto-tune production. Today, each of those Black Eyed Peas songs has hundreds of millions of streams in the U.S. Jay-Z’s protest anthem? Less than 40 million. The market spoke. Technological evolution won.

Infrastructure evolves

If AI continues to earn its place in music production—and all signs point to that inevitable reality—it doesn’t mean that artists or rights holders have to lose. This is where foresight becomes essential. The sampler wars of the late 1980s offer an instructive parallel. When Biz Markie was sued in 1991 for sampling Gilbert O’Sullivan, the industry faced an existential crisis. The outcome wasn’t suppression of the technology, it was the creation of an entire licensing and clearance infrastructure. Detection and attribution became the foundation of a functioning market.

That infrastructure has continued to evolve in the era of streaming and transmedia discovery. Millions are being spent on legacy music catalogs, and those high valuations are proving to be valid. At the midpoint of this year, Becoming Led Zeppelin was the most-viewed new music documentary in the U.S., and its high viewership drove a sustained 23% increase in streams for the band’s catalog. Notably, the documentary’s release drove Led Zeppelin to its highest-ever weekly total for global on-demand audio streams: 40.4 million in late February. But what happens if AI-generated music infringes on Led Zeppelin’s copyright during the creation process? I think we can all agree that no one should get away with stealing others’ creative IP for financial gain. The industry needs to move fast and policy needs to be implemented so that artists and rights holders continue to be paid fairly and rightfully as AI’s presence in music expands. 

At Luminate, our mission is to provide the entertainment industry with essential, objective, and trustworthy data. When it comes to AI, that mission has only become more critical. Our data shows not just what happened, but what’s happening now, and increasingly, what’s about to happen. That visibility is what enables stakeholders across the industry, everyone from labels and publishers to platforms and policymakers, to make informed decisions rather than reactive ones. AI-generated artists designed for scale and low-cost delivery will proliferate. Online and live performance environments will be filled with algorithmically-optimized content. The technology will become more sophisticated, more accessible, and harder to detect without proper infrastructure.

We all need to work with the same objective information to navigate these advancements.