In October last year, Telisha ‘Nikki’ Jones made headlines after her avatar Xania Monet became the first known AI act to debut on a Billboard chart. Since then, the American songwriter’s singles Let Go, Let Go and How Was I Supposed to Know? have met with tremendous success, with the latter even securing a $3-million recording deal with Hallwood Media, an independent music management company, publisher, and record label.
The 31-year-old Mississippi resident emphasises that she writes all of the lyrics herself, but uses the AI platform Suno to produce Xania Monet’s music. “Xania is an extension of me, so I look at her as a real person,” she was quoted as saying by media reports.
Jones is not alone. AI in music is now a reality, and the Billboard charts in the past few months have proven that more than adequately —at least six AI artistes have made it to the esteemed rankings for songs and albums so far. The number will only increase in the near future, say industry observers.
According to Deezer, a global music experience platform, roughly 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are now being uploaded every day, accounting for 34% of all its daily deliveries.
Going mainstream
AI is making inroads into mainstream music like never before. Earlier last year, The Beatles’ Now and Then made history after it became the first AI-assisted track to take home a Grammy. While it won the award for the ‘Best Rock Performance’, it was also nominated for the ‘Record of the Year’. The song used AI technology to extricate John Lennon’s vocals from an old cassette, originally a 1970 John Lennon demo, by the remaining band members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
“We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI,” McCartney said in a media interview, adding: “Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. It gives you some sort of leeway.”
Closer home, in the 2024 Tamil-language sports action drama film Lal Salaam, music composer AR Rahman used AI to recreate the voices of two deceased singers, Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed, for a song titled Thimiri Yezhuda. The movie, directed by Aishwarya Rajinikanth, had superstar Rajinikanth in an extended cameo role.
In fact, in November last year, Rahman shared insights from his earlier interactions with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas. Revealing this on Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath’s People by WTF podcast, the music legend said that he urged the two influential figures to use AI to “empower people” and address “generational curses” such as poverty, misinformation, and a lack of tools for storytelling and creation.
The music legend also raised a cautionary plea: “Don’t make people lose jobs.”
Interestingly, Rahman is teaming up with Sam Altman for an AI-based project called Secret Mountain, a virtual global band that is being developed as a metaverse-based musical platform.
Meanwhile, at the Google I/O conference 2025, Grammy-winning singer Shankar Mahadevan unveiled Rubaroo, a song co-created using Google’s Music AI Sandbox. This collaboration blends Mahadevan’s musical artistry with AI innovation, fusing traditional Indian sounds with cutting-edge technology. He called AI “an inspiring tool,” opening doors to new creative possibilities.
In 2024, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma announced that he will ditch human musicians and use only AI-generated tunes in his future projects, a move that underscores AI’s growing reach in creative industries. The filmmaker and screenwriter, known for popular films such as Company, Rangeela, Sarkar and Satya, launched a venture called RGV Den Music, which will only feature music generated from AI apps, including Suno and Udio. The entire background score for his new feature film Saree, for instance, is AI generated.
“Every new part of technology has its pros and cons and so therefore we should embrace it,” says singer Adnan Sami. Sharing a video in which two youngsters are seen recreating the singer-cum-composer’s blockbuster romantic number Tera Chehra with legendary singer Kishore Kumar’s AI-generated voice in early 2024, the artiste wrote: “It’s here to stay and it is up to us how we use it and we should try and use it in a positive way and try to exploit it in a good manner.”
“This is just so beautiful! If I were to compose this song for anyone to sing, it would have been my favourite Kishore da… I always wondered what it would have sounded like in his voice. You both made it possible through Al! Kudos!” he added.
Evolving with tech
While AI has helped in generating new music, with many artistes encouraging its use, some critics argue that AI diminishes the value of human creativity. Additionally, concerns have been raised about AI’s potential to homogenise music.
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rounak Maiti says decades ago, people would have lamented the arrival of the computer and digital audio workstations in ruining the so-called ‘purity’ of real music made with guitars and drums. “Nothing is impossible, and I think pushing the boundaries of how music is made and heard is very important. But generative machine learning, at least at the cost of mass-feeding these AI platforms large amounts of human-created art, is something I am certainly very disturbed by,” says Maiti.
“Music evolves with technology, and the focus should be on ensuring that tools like AI enhance content rather than replace human artistry, and as long as music retains emotion, purity and respect for creators, regardless of how it is made,” says Dinraj Shetty, MD, Sony Music Publishing India.
Rakesh Nigam, CEO of Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), says the focus should be on authenticity, intent, and fairness. “Every new advancement—from synthesisers to digital production—has contributed to the industry’s growth. The real concern is when technology is used to replicate or monetise music without acknowledging its original creators,” he says.
Nigam believes that a line must be drawn where human creativity is undervalued, and artistic contributions are overlooked. “Music should continue to evolve, but in a way that respects and rewards those who bring it to life,” he adds.
For Ricky Kej, music composer, environmentalist, a three-time Grammy Award winner, music has the ability to communicate through sound and drive the emotion across to the audience—what is pure and impure cannot be defined by whether it has been created by a computer or it has been created by a human being. “Music must get an emotional response from the listener or help two people fall in love, whether it is created by human or AI programme, it doesn’t matter. It should serve its purpose of being magical,” he says.
Prematron aka Premik Jolly, a guitarist, composer, live artist and producer based in Bengaluru, adds: “With AI, it’s too late to stop it and it’s inevitable. We either jump onboard and use it in a beneficial way rather than depend on it fully and incorporate it into our workflow as musicians. Companies are doing the same now with instruments and processors like effects and instruments using AI to give us a better result for music making. But song creation needs to be regulated.”
