Photo Credit: Suno
Artificial intelligence licensing deals are continuing to pour in, and according to many, the music world is steadily positioning itself to benefit from yet another disruptive technology. But beneath all the optimism, is there a fundamental disconnect between AI giants and leading industry players?
Right off the bat, one might be inclined to answer in the negative. The past three or so months have, after all, delivered signed-and-sealed agreements involving AI juggernauts such as NVIDIA, Suno, Udio, Stability AI, Splice, and KLAY Vision.
And Universal Music head Lucian Grainge kicked off 2026 by reiterating his company’s approach to AI dealmaking – including a central focus on advantageous licensing terms and a belief “that trying to smother emerging technology is futile.”
Nevertheless, different evidence naturally raises questions about whether the majors (and the wider industry) are on the same page as AI behemoths including Suno.
Most conspicuously, only Warner Music has licensed the latter, which is still facing infringement litigation from Universal Music and Sony Music. Udio, for its part, has scored licensing pacts with Universal and Warner but not Sony, which remains embroiled in a courtroom confrontation with the AI upstart.
Now for some fresher evidence: Interesting comments from Suno’s chief music officer, Paul Sinclair.
A former longtime Atlantic Records exec, Sinclair on LinkedIn rather directly describes his goal at Suno as “bridging the gap between artists, rights-holders and AI.” In keeping with the objective, the higher-up penned a more than 1,000-word post-Grammys LinkedIn post assessing where things stand at the intersection of AI and music.
The manifesto popped up following a long string at meetings during Grammy Week in Los Angeles, where Sinclair was undoubtedly peppered with lots of questions and serious pushback.
“What I felt this week wasn’t denial of the challenges. It was a quiet recognition that we’ve been here before. Technology changes. Creation expands. The business model evolves. And music, the human need to make it, share it, and feel it, keeps finding a way forward,” Sinclair wrote.
“I’ve spent a lot of time trying to simplify this very nuanced situation that we’re in, with the end goal of understanding the most common underlying concerns. Ultimately what I’ve found is: at the center of today’s debate is control versus empowerment,” he continued.
And the way the Suno music chief sees the landscape, said control-versus-empowerment debate pertains to whether creation can thrive without an “open studio” arrangement.
“There’s a growing narrative that the safest future for music is one where new creative tools live inside tightly controlled, ‘walled garden’ environments,” he elaborated. “The idea is that if music can’t leave the platform, can’t be downloaded, edited elsewhere, shared freely, or distributed more broadly, then rights are better protected.”
Of course, this “walled garden” model sounds a lot like that which Udio implemented under its deals with Universal Music and Warner Music. (Meanwhile, at least for now, Universal Music and Sony Music seem to be roundly rejecting Suno’s open studio.)
“My ultimate takeaway: The future of music creation should feel like an open studio,” Sinclair summed up. “It should respect rights, compensate creators, and build sustainable models; but it should also trust that giving people real creative agency leads to deeper engagement with music, not less.”
Time will tell whether the gap narrows between these two positions – though even a partial resolution may enable more intense licensing disconnects to take center stage. As noted, both sides tend to compare the gen-AI explosion to the advent of streaming, which, importantly, never threatened to upend the tenets of creativity and artistry.
However, all the talk about AI’s democratizing the creative process and eliminating entry barriers boils down to allowing music creation without any skill whatsoever. Already, the majority of proper musicians are worried about the millions of machine-made tracks inundating DSPs.
Follow the points to their logical conclusion – AI platforms have an inherent interest in pumping out as much slop as possible, while rightsholders and actual professionals have justifiable concerns about drowning in a sea of sound – and you’re left with a disagreement that might take some time to resolve.
