YouTube Launches Music AI Incubator in Partnership With Universal Music Group

what's upAI

Aug 21

YouTube has launched a new music AI initiative in partnership with Universal Music Group. Many artists, songwriters, and producers have been tapped to provide their input and are invited to collaborate on YouTube’s latest “artist-centric approach to AI innovation.”

“To begin this important initiative, we are working hand-in-hand with YouTube to launch their Music AI Incubator, which is first bringing together a working group of leading UMG artists, songwriters, and producers in multiple genres,” wrote UMG SEO and chairman, Sir Lucian Grainge. “This group will explore, experiment, and offer feedback on the AI-related musical tools and products they are researching. Once these tools are launched, the hope is that more artists who want to participate will benefit from and enjoy this creative suite.”

Anitta, Björn Ulvaeus, along with d4vd, Don Was, Juanes, Louis Bell, Max Richter, Rodney Jerkins, Rosanne Cash, Ryan Tedder, Yo Gotti, the Estate of Frank Sinatra, and many others are on board with the project.

“While some may find my decision controversial, I’ve joined this group with an open mind and purely out of curiosity about how an AI model works and what it could be capable of in a creative process,” shared Björn Ulvaeus in a statement.“I believe that the more I understand, the better equipped I’ll be to advocate for and to help protect the rights of my fellow human creators.”

YouTube CEO, Neal Mohan, also released a new set of principles that “serve to enhance music’s unique creative expression while also protecting music artists and the integrity of their work,” detailed below:

Principle #1: AI is here, and we will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners. As generative AI unlocks ambitious new forms of creativity, YouTube and our partners across the music industry agree to build on our long collaborative history and responsibly embrace this rapidly advancing field. Our goal is to partner with the music industry to empower creativity in a way that enhances our joint pursuit of responsible innovation.

Principle #2: AI is ushering in a new age of creative expression, but it must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate. We’re continuing our strong track record of protecting the creative work of artists on YouTube. We’ve made massive investments over the years in the systems that help balance the interests of copyright holders with those of the creative community on YouTube.

Principle #3: We’ve built an industry-leading trust and safety organization and content policies. We will scale those to meet the challenges of AI. We spent years investing in the policies and trust and safety teams that help protect the YouTube community, and we’re also applying these safeguards to AI-generated content. Generative AI systems may amplify current challenges like trademark and copyright abuse, misinformation, spam, and more. But AI can also be used to identify this sort of content, and we’ll continue to invest in the AI-powered technology that helps us protect our community of viewers, creators, artists and songwriters–from Content ID to policies and detection and enforcement systems that keep our platform safe behind the scenes. And we commit to scaling this work even further.”