The rhythm of creation is undergoing a profound transformation. For centuries, music, the universal language of emotion, has been meticulously crafted by human minds, hearts, and hands. Now, a new orchestrator has entered the studio: artificial intelligence. This is not merely a technological shift. It is a cultural event that may redefine how music is created, consumed, and valued. For consumer brands, this shift presents unprecedented opportunities to ride the next cultural wave.
The New Orchestrator: AI as Composer, Producer, and Maker
The rise of AI in music is no longer a future concept but a present reality. Generative AI tools are composing, producing, and assisting in full musical creation. According to one industry report, the global generative‑AI in music market was estimated at $ 440.0 million in 2023, and is forecast to grow to $ 2,794.7 million by 2030, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of roughly 30.4%.
These AI tools can now craft melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and full instrumental layers across genres in seconds or minutes. This lowers the barrier to entry and democratizes music creation. A musician with an idea and internet access, even without access to expensive studios or traditional backing, can prototype productions at a fraction of the time and cost.
Critics often argue that AI‑generated music lacks soul or genuine human emotion. But that view overlooks AI’s potential as a creative collaborator. AI can act as a tireless co‑creative partner and an infinite source of inspiration. It allows artists to bypass repetitive technical tasks and focus on vision, emotion, and storytelling. The creative process is evolving into a human‑AI collaboration rather than a clash between humans and machines.
India: Fertile Ground for AI‑Powered Musical Reinvention
In India, the impact of this shift is already visible. According to the 2023 report by the media and entertainment industry, India’s digital music‑streaming audience was around 185 million, of which about 7.5 million were paid subscribers.
In the same year (FY23), daily music streams in India reached roughly 460 million, a 1.6× increase from FY20.
Within these streams, regional and vernacular music has surged in popularity. Vernacular (non-Hindi, non-English) music constituted about 34% of total streams in FY23, indicating strong and growing demand for regional and indie content.
These numbers point to two key realities. First, India is already a massive and diverse music market. Second, there is latent demand for independent, regional, vernacular, or non‑film music that remains inadequately served by traditional music infrastructure.
AI‑driven tools are uniquely positioned to meet this demand. By offering low-cost, low-friction production capabilities, AI empowers independent artists, even from small towns, to produce ambient tracks, regional‑language songs, or fusion music without needing expensive studios or label backing. For consumer brands, this opens a frontier for deeply resonant, localized audio content: a South‑Indian folk‑pop score, a Punjabi rap track for youth audiences, or vernacular background music for regional campaigns. The combination of AI scale and human cultural sensibility presents an exciting opportunity.
More Than Tools: AI Music as Infrastructure
The next cultural wave will be shaped not only by the songs themselves but also by the infrastructure that enables their creation, distribution, and monetisation. This is where founders of consumer brands, media platforms, lifestyle apps, or content‑first startups may find leverage.
Today’s music industry, especially in India, still struggles with structural inefficiencies: dependency on a few major labels, outdated royalty frameworks, and opaque revenue flows. Streaming platforms under freemium models often struggle to offer fair payouts or sustainable economics.
Emerging academic proposals envision a different foundation. Music could be broken into modular blocks, melody, rhythm, and instrumentation, each carrying metadata, attribution data, and usage logs. Whenever a block is reused or remixed, a settlement event could trigger automatic royalty distribution.
Platforms that combine generative‑AI composition, metadata tagging, rights registration, and real‑time payouts could build a modern, fair, and scalable music economy. For founders, this is a strategic opportunity to build from the ground up with transparent ownership, licensing, and monetisation baked in.
Risks, Gaps, and the Imperative for Cultural Intelligence
The promise of AI music is vast. But the path forward demands care, cultural intelligence, and ethical design.
A recent academic study reveals a stark imbalance in AI music research. In a dataset of over one million hours of audio used for training, roughly 86% of the data comes from music of the Global North; only 14.6% represents music from the Global South (which includes India and other regions).
This bias affects the ability of AI tools to generate convincing, culturally authentic music, especially for music rooted in regional, folk or classical traditions of the Global South. Without deliberate efforts to diversify training data and incorporate human curation, AI music risks preserving the dominance of Western‑style music and marginalizing non‑Western traditions.
The economic risk is also real. According to a global economic study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), artists could lose nearly 25% of their income in the coming years if AI‑generated music proliferates without fair compensation mechanisms.
If the industry fails to embed transparent attribution, licensing, and payout systems, the creative ecosystem may buckle under exploitation, mistrust, and homogenization.
What Founders Should Watch And Build
For founders of consumer-facing brands, especially those in media, content, or lifestyle, AI music is a strategic opportunity and a moral mandate:
- Build or Partner with “AI-Music-First” Platforms: The value chain is flattening. Platforms that offer prompt-to-song creation, rights registration, transparent royalties, and easy licensing will gain a first-mover advantage Beatoven.ai’s Maestro model is a strong signal of this shift. Built on fully licensed data with guaranteed payouts, it has already seen more than 2 million users create over 15 million tracks on earlier versions. Its approach shows how the future of AI music depends on consent-based datasets, transparent attribution and tools that genuinely strengthen creator ecosystems. Platforms with these capabilities will lead the next wave.
- Leverage AI for Regional and Vernacular Content: Given India’s diversity, AI is a pragmatic lever for scaling regional-language music production, enabling local creators to draft compositions and add authentic, human-performed elements (voice, traditional instruments) to preserve cultural flavour.
- Invest in Fair Attribution and Transparent Monetisation: Future-proof platforms must prioritise systems that embed provenance, licensing, and royalty transparency from day one. This requires the use of metadata frameworks, smart contracts, and transparent license trails for AI-generated music.
- Use AI for Brand Storytelling and Immersive Experiences: AI music can be a differentiator beyond simple jingles. Think of dynamic soundtracks for fitness apps that match heart rate, or responsive ambient music for physical retail spaces, creating truly individualized auditory experiences.
The future of music is not a debate between humans and machines; it is about the intelligent integration of both. The next cultural wave will belong to the founders and platforms who use AI not as a cost-cutting shortcut, but as a means to democratise creativity, embed fairness, and amplify cultural diversity, building an equitable, transparent ecosystem where artists and fans can legally make, share, and get paid.
To conclude, AI music is more than a technological shift. It is a cultural, economic, and creative inflection point. The next decade will reward companies that treat AI not as a cost‑cutting hack but as infrastructure, infrastructure that is scalable, rights-aware, and culturally sensitive.
AI music is a way to unlock India’s deep creative potential. Not by replacing musicians, but by elevating them. Not by cheapening production, but by widening access. Not by diluting culture, but by amplifying it.
With AI, a small‑town musician should be able to upload a song in her mother tongue, get discovered globally, and earn fair royalties, without needing a big label or expensive studio. With the right platforms, vernacular compositions could become global soundwaves. Brands could create deeply personal, hyper-local audio experiences. And listeners across cities, Tier I, II, or III, could access and celebrate music born in small towns.
But this future depends on design and intent. The platforms that combine AI’s scale with human emotion, cultural sensitivity, and ethical design will define the next cultural wave. Building that future is not optional. It is essential. The next wave belongs to those who build it right.