S Would you like to know what awaits you in 2026? Apart from the crying and gnashing of teeth everywhere: the outrage over AI-generated pop music will subside in 2026 or will simply be overwhelmed by developments. The willingness to fight will retreat into legally and economically important areas such as copyright, the amount of royalty payments and state funding. Because the battle over the use of AI in daily music production can no longer be won.
If you look into the (non-existent) pop music history books, you’ll see: It’s always been that way. How were people scolded and called for resistance when multitracking in studio technology made it possible to eliminate the use of orchestras in music recordings; when rhythm machines and other electronic helpers made the process cheaper and the hiring of drummers and other music craftsmen unnecessary. Usually a little money goes to someone somewhere, and then the text continues.
What does this mean for everyday musical life in 2026? There will initially be little noticeable change. The increase in the proportion of completely or partially AI-generated music in the playlists of streaming platforms will hardly be noticeable to the layperson, since human-generated pop and commercial music ultimately uses the same methods: epigones train themselves on what already exists, they “prompt” themselves to produce an Ed Sheeran, Coldplay or Taylor Swift-like song.
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This is nothing new, but rather the core task in the world of industrial music production determined by economic interests (analogously extendable to the world of cultural production as a whole). When the world hears the BeatlesElton John and Mariah Carey and is more willing to pay money for their works (than for those of the Pretty Things, by Van Dyke Parks and Janis Ian), the music producers make it their mission to provide them with one, two, many Beatles, Elton Johns and Mariah Careys. AIs make this task easier and speed up its completion significantly, but hardly produce any qualitatively different results.
Pimp up, style, short-circuit
On the other hand, it always gets exciting, as the music history books above teach you, when new technologies are brushed against the grain; if you pimp them up, tweak them, short-circuit them, so that you can finally make use of their immense technical possibilities and no longer have to be limited to the stupid, small, system-compliant effective range that was set at the factory. The sensation that arises when people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jimi Hendrix and… Mary Halvorson subjugate the technology and devices available for manipulating the sound of a guitar! Now transfer that to the music AIs – OMG!
There could be 26 – in addition to a number of pranks and jokes – some big, artistic surprises here. And a career tip for anyone who would rather switch from hard work to effortless income today rather than tomorrow: commission the AI you trust to produce a thousand songs each in the style of Olivia Dean, Zah1de and Daniela Alfinito, provide artist names, pictures, bios and videos and upload the whole thing to the relevant streaming providers.
It would be funny if there wasn’t a hit and you could move into your own 300 sqm penthouse in Dubai this spring! And in the unlikely event that it doesn’t work: just try again tomorrow! What did gambling advertising used to say? “Stick with it – it’ll definitely work one day!”