Universal Music is launching an AI music platform with ElevenLabs
The Verge Emma Roth
Universal Music is making an AI music platform with ElevenLabs. Artists can opt in, and fans may soon remix licensed songs instead of pirating them.
Based on reporting by The Verge, Emma Roth — read the original for the full story.
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Universal Music Group is building an AI platform that will let people work with its licensed catalog to make remixes, mashups, and new versions of tracks. The project was announced Thursday, and it comes through a multiyear licensing deal with ElevenLabs, the company known for AI voice and music generation.
The important part is the gatekeeping. Artists will get to decide whether they want their music included, which means this is being pitched less like a free-for-all generator and more like a controlled studio tool. That matters because the music business has spent the last couple of years trying to decide whether AI is a threat, a toy, or a new revenue line.
Universal is not treating this as a one-off. It is already working on another AI music platform with Udio, and it has also signed AI licensing deals with Spotify and Nvidia. So this is starting to look like a strategy: don’t just argue with AI companies, license them, and try to keep the cash and the rights inside the tent.
The source does not say when the ElevenLabs platform will launch or exactly how the music will be used beyond remixes, mashups, and new takes. But the shape of the deal is clear. Universal wants to be the label that says yes on its own terms, rather than the label that wakes up to find its catalog being used everywhere for free.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the music industry doing what it always does when panic meets a spreadsheet: wrapping the chaos in a licensing agreement. Opt-in is the right move, but it also means the real product here is control, not creativity. The open-web crowd will call that boring; the labels call it Monday morning.
Read more about this at: The Verge
