<\/p>\n
Universal Music Group has announced a new partnership with AI and robotics giant NVIDIA.<\/p>\n
It’s the latest in a string of controversial partnerships between UMG, along with other major labels<\/a>, and AI tech companies. In a press release issued yesterday, 6th January, Universal said the partnership would combine NVIDIA\u2019s AI infrastructure and Music Flamingo audio model with Universal’s catalogue of millions of recordings to create tools for music creation, discovery and distribution.<\/p>\n According to the NVIDIA\u2019s research overview notes, Music Flamingo has the ability to listen to music the same way a human does, recognising and understanding \u201charmony, structure, timbre, lyrics, and cultural context.\u201d<\/p>\n Song generation, they say, will be less of a focus, but using AI in collaboration with artists as part of their development strategy will be a significant element. The idea is to co-develop AI tools with musicians, producers and songwriters, which Universal say is the solution to what\u00a0 CEO Sir Lucian Grainge previously described as \u201cplatform pollution\u201d by low-quality, AI-generated music on streaming services. In September last year, Spotify announced it had removed over 75 million spam tracks from its platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n The statement went on to say that \u201cthis collaboration sets new standards for innovation and responsibility in the music industry\u201d, calling it \u201cresponsible AI\u201d and \u201ca direct antidote to generic, \u2018AI slop\u2019 outputs\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re entering an era where a music catalog can be explored like an intelligent universe \u2014 conversational, contextual, and genuinely interactive\u201d, said Richard Kerris, NVIDIA VP\/GM of Media. \u201cBy extending NVIDIA\u2019s Music Flamingo with UMG\u2019s unmatched catalog and creative ecosystem, we\u2019re going to change how fans discover, understand, and engage with music on a global scale. And we\u2019ll do it the right way: responsibly, with safeguards that protect artists\u2019 work, ensure attribution, and respect copyright.\u201d<\/p>\n The Universal-owned Abbey Road Studios and Capitol Studios will be used to test these new tools, where both companies say protecting copyright, attribution and consent will be of the utmost importance.<\/p>\n UMG has recently joined forces with Splice<\/a>, KLAY<\/a> and Udio<\/a>\u00a0in a bid to get ahead of the AI game.<\/p>\n