Against the machine

AI is already behind little tunes we hear every day. Could it create the next hit? Composers and engineers listen in

- Karishma Kuenzang

Think of all the moments in which music fills our lives without us realising: Call-waiting tunes when we're on hold with customer service, theme songs in video games, audio logos (such as Netflix's tudum and Intel's five-note clip). Five years ago, these would have been composed by a human being. Now, they're more likely to be birthed by AI. Even a familiar sounding song might have come out of a machine. Heart on My Sleeve, which went viral last year, sounds like it was sung by Drake and The Weeknd. It was actually written and produced by TikTok user ghostwriter977, but made (via AI) to sound like the Canadian artists.

The bots are getting closer and closer to creating music that sounds like the real thing, says Mansoor Rahimat Khan, co-founder of BeatOven, an AI-driven start-up that helps composers and content creators create exclusive, royalty-free music. "Technology has started sounding good," he admits. "Back in 2019, there were three to five AI music start-ups globally, which had 3 million users. Today there are about 50 to 100 million users who generate soundtracks on AI products."

You've probably heard some of it already. It's in the background music on YouTube videos or in travel blogs. Albums of low-fi ambient music - stuff designed to play while people shop, ride the elevator, wait in reception areas - are already on Spotify. "AI is taking over the space where you listen to music passively," says Khan. "In active listening cases, as when Arijit Singh is singing, it hasn't." He estimates that by 2026, AI will compose most passive listening music, leaving human composers to create the more meaningful work.