Answering questions from MIDiA’s "The State of AI and Music" webinar

Last week, MIDiA’s public webinar “The State of AI and Music” explored AI’s role in reshaping consumption, creation, and value in the music industry. For those who were unable to attend, a recording of the webinar is available here. During the 45-minute presentation, we received a whopping 57 questions from attendees – far more than we could cover live (as much as we wanted to!). However, we’ve chosen a few more of your most urgent, thought-provoking questions to answer below.

In "deepening the [listener] journey", how can we know that the Spotify's of the world are not recommending “fake artists”?

While DSPs like Spotify and Deezer have begun implementing some safeguards, this risk of so-called “fake artists” highlights the importance of centering the listener journey around artist discovery and fandom rather than just song discovery. In the ideal discovery journey, a listener is discovering both the song and the world around the artist – a world that surface-level generated artists do not have. 

“Fake artists” like those that typically surface in functional music playlists are created for background listening rather than deeper engagement. If platforms build a listener journey that is focused on discovering the artist rather than just the song, then algorithms will naturally recommend artists that can be engaged with, not just listened to.

How have MIDiA's views of the Consumer Creator changed with time?  

As generative AI tools have evolved, the “consumer creator” has emerged as a separate lane within the creator economy. For the first time, creation is starting to compete with consumption as fan creation becomes a key way of engaging with entertainment. Still, AI’s effect on consumer creator segment growth will be less explosive and more gradual. Despite AI tools as a whole becoming mainstream, generative AI music tool use is still a niche behaviour among consumers, with less than 10% of consumers in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada using gen AI music tools at least monthly (source: MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2025). 

Nevertheless, we see AI music tools as an emerging way for fans to engage more deeply with their favourite artists – they just may not adopt these tools overnight. For more insight into how consumers use gen AI music tools, look out for MIDiA’s generative AI music user forecasts, which will be published for clients in the coming months.

Do you see a difference of cultural acceptance [of AI] in different geographic markets?

Broadly speaking, markets with higher music streaming penetration tend to also have higher generative AI music platform usage. Global South markets especially tend to over-index for engaging with AI – for example, only a quarter of surveyed US consumers use AI weekly, compared to nearly half of surveyed Brazilian consumers. This use extends to AI music acceptance as well, with Brazilian consumers strongly overindexing for using AI music generators at least monthly (source: MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2025). This difference in cultural acceptance may also be partially due to AI tools providing a more accessible path to creation. As the Global South increasingly drives creator growth, young creators from these markets are often turning to generative AI and mobile creation tools to begin their creative journey, as these present a lower barrier to entry compared to more established creator tools. 

Don’t forget, you can watch (or rewatch!) our full “The State of AI and Music” webinar here.