As AI in the music industry accelerates at an unprecedented pace, the debate around creativity, authorship, and value has never felt more urgent. Algorithms can now generate melodies, mimic voices, and produce entire tracks within seconds — but what does that mean for the role of the human artist?
At SXSW, Snow J, founder of Cheerful Music, articulated a powerful paradox: “The faster AI develops, the more valuable human-created music becomes.” In a landscape increasingly shaped by automation and platform monetisation, her perspective challenges the assumption that efficiency equals progress.
Rather than rejecting technology, Snow proposes a balanced approach — one where AI enhances workflow but never replaces intention, cultural identity, or emotional truth. In this conversation, we explore how AI in the music industry is reshaping royalties, storytelling, artistic risk, and the very definition of what it means to be an artist in 2026.
AI in the Music Industry: Infinite Productivity, Finite Emotion
At SXSW, you articulated a striking paradox: “The faster AI develops, the more valuable human-created music becomes.” Can you unpack the emotional and economic layers behind that statement? What exactly is becoming more “valuable,” and to whom?
When productivity becomes infinite, thinking and creativity become the new universal currency. AI is very good at imitating outcomes, but it lacks motivation. If everyone can generate unlimited amounts of music through AI, then the opposite quality becomes rare and therefore extremely valuable. What will truly distinguish artists is the things machines cannot produce: soul, pain, lived human emotion, and cultural roots. These elements will ultimately determine who is a real artist.
Just as fast food can satisfy hunger but often lacks the profound joy and complex flavours of a home-cooked masterpiece, music needs human touch to provide true emotional fulfilment.
At Cheerful Music, we use AI to improve efficiency as a supporting tool, not a replacement. What we cannot afford to lose is thinking and creative intention. To use an analogy: AI-generated content is like fast food. While it offers undeniable convenience and saves time, relying on it exclusively may lead to a lack of ‘nutritional depth’ in one’s creative diet. Just as fast food can satisfy hunger but often lacks the profound joy and complex flavours of a home-cooked masterpiece, music needs human touch to provide true emotional fulfilment.
Human Artistry vs AI-Generated Music
There’s a quiet tension in your approach: embracing AI as a tool, yet anchoring your catalogue in traditional Chinese instrumentation and songwriting. How do you prevent technology from diluting the cultural specificity you’ve worked to preserve?
I view AI as a ‘Translator,’ not a ‘Creator.’ While AI can flawlessly simulate the timbre of a Guzheng or Pipa, it is fundamentally blind to the concepts of ‘Qi’ (气 – breath) and ‘Liu Bai’ (留白 – meaningful silence). Take our recent release, ‘Etched in Time,’ as an example. The emotional phrasing and the specific tonal character designed by the Pipa player, MARSIX, carry a human signature that AI simply cannot replicate. Indeed, every performer brings a different ‘version’ of a song because they infuse it with their immediate emotional state and life experience. The most significant challenges with AI are data modularisation and cultural homogenization.
Many producers now face a subtle temptation: to outsource creative risk to AI. Have you observed this shift within your own network, and what does it cost artists in the long term?
I call this the ‘Safety Trap.’ When you outsource creative risk, you are inevitably sacrificing your personal identity and imagination. In the long run, the artist ceases to be a creator and becomes a mere ‘appendix’ to the algorithm. At Cheerful Music, I actively encourage our production teams to use AI to handle technical labour, the heavy lifting.
In an AI-saturated market, human friction is the only thing that creates true value.
The Safety Trap: When Artists Outsource Creative Risk
However, I am firm on one thing: you must retain your distinct personal signature and raw creativity. Otherwise, you become easily replaceable. To me, the title ‘Artist’ is earned through the courage to imagine and create something that didn’t exist before. If you become 100% dependent on AI, you are no longer an artist; you are an operator.
In an AI-saturated market, human friction is the only thing that creates true value.
Royalties, Copyright, and the Structural Risk of AI Monetisation
As streaming platforms begin monetising AI-generated music and questions around authorship, royalties, and copyright intensify, do you believe the industry risks structurally undermining human artistry? And what kind of regulatory or ethical framework is needed to protect not just ownership, but the creative value and intent behind human-made music?
This is a very challenging issue currently facing the industry. While some streaming platforms have already begun monetising AI-generated music, an evolution that may be structurally inevitable, we must proceed with caution. We should also avoid reducing music to a purely transactional formula. It would also lead to the devaluation of commercial ecosystems.
If fully AI-generated music is granted the same royalty-clearing status as human creation, it would pose a fundamental structural challenge to our industry’s traditional business models. Think about Sync Licensing: Why would the gaming, automotive, or smartphone industries continue to license human-composed music? They can generate ‘functional’ tracks for free with one click.
We should not allow AI-generated music to ultimately become a free substitute for the future of the industry.
If the industry fails to protect ‘Human Artistry’ as the primary driver of creative value, we don’t just lose royalties, we lose the very reason for an artist’s existence in the professional market. We should not allow AI-generated music to ultimately become a free substitute for the future of the industry.
Why Storytelling Is the New Currency in an AI-Saturated Market
In a world where music can be generated infinitely and sound itself is no longer scarce, what becomes the true currency of value? Is it storytelling, identity, marketing, attention, or something deeper? And in this AI-saturated landscape, what remains unmistakably human that still allows artists to connect with audiences truly?
Today, tens of thousands of new songs are released every single day. Sound itself is no longer scarce, but being heard is. While the barrier to music production has been dramatically lowered, getting audiences to actually discover and engage with your music has become exponentially more difficult. That’s why, in today’s market, marketing and storytelling have become just as important as the music itself.
Sound itself is no longer scarce, but being heard is.
At Cheerful Music, short-form video marketing is one of our core strengths. We specialise in using the most effective distribution channels of the algorithm-driven era. This allows us to transform music into visual, emotionally resonant short-form content. This is our competitive edge, the way we help music break through the noise and reach the right audiences with precision. We use AI to improve production efficiency. In addition, short-video marketing improves distribution efficiency.
What Remains Irreducibly Human in Music?
But to win the listener’s heart, we rely on the one thing no machine can optimise: the authentic human story.
Thank you.
