Breaking the language barrier: AI’s next disruption in music

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once proclaimed that music is a universal language. Ironically, perhaps the only part of this universal language that isn’t universal is language itself.

In the streaming era, it may seem easier than ever for musicians to reach listeners around the world, as global hits like “DtMF”, “Gangnam Style”, and “Alors on danse” have certainly demonstrated. However, in the majority of cases, language barriers still pose a major challenge to artists trying to reach global audiences and turn them into fans.

Fans need to translate lyrics to understand a song’s true meaning (with Bad Bunny’s fandom recently doing the hard work for others) and artists must learn another language to speak to them (e.g., RM from BTS). Fans may record covers in their native language to bring a song to life, and artists may spend precious resources re-recording songs to reach foreign fans (“99 Luftballons” versus “99 Red Balloons”, for example). While friction around language can serve as a powerful tool in building fandom and connection, more often than not it serves to limit the potential audience.

Yet for the first time, the Tower of Babel is currently re-forming – and those barriers might not exist for much longer.

Babbling clones and Babel fish

Translation is now easier than ever thanks to AI (Rosetta Stone, eat your heart out). What previously took significant manual expertise is now mostly scalable and on demand. In the background of all the disruptive commotion, AI has enabled a supercharged communication revolution.

For artists, ElevenLabs have developed voice cloning technology that enables cloned voices to automatically speak 30+ languages. Applied to musical vocals, that very quickly enables 99 Luftballons to also become 99 Palloncini, 風船99個, 99 Balonów, 99个气球, 99 Na Lobo, 99 بالونًا, and more. Beyond Western music more easily reaching the East, it also enables 今生缘 (one of the biggest Mandopop songs of 2025) to become Destiny In This Life.

AirPod Pro 3s can translate a selection of foreign languages in real time – essentially creating the first prototype of the Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. What was science fiction less than 50 years ago is now a (partial) reality, and a once nearly insurmountable barrier to human connection and fandom could tumble.

What happens when everything is understood?

As close as we are, there are still many challenges to consider. Translation doesn’t guarantee success. Culture is inherently differentiated, and with it, taste and preferences. Book publishers know this, and take care to tweak languages and stories to meet cultural expectations when translating books for foreign markets.

Similar care would need to be taken to re-sync the rhythm, cadence, rhyme, etc. to translated lyrics. That is far less scalable work that could open the door for a new discipline of glocalisation in music.

Yet disruption rarely cares for perfect solutions. If everything could be relevant to everyone, a whole host of pre-existing beliefs and structures would be challenged with it:

• Would broader accessibility drive the consolidation of IP and brands around the world, or would the overwhelming influx of competitive content drive fragmentation?

• How is talent identified and recruited in a truly global ecosystem?

• What does a marketing strategy look like if you can natively reach Buenos Aires, Beijing, and Beirut at the same time?

• Would governments or regulators enact tariff-like measures to protect local artists from global competition?

For decades, the global music industry has operated with the hidden constraint that most songs would only ever fully resonate within the boundaries of a shared language. That constraint could be set to break. What will replace it won’t just be a bigger market – it will be a fundamentally different one. One where reach is no longer scarce, attention is even more contested, and culture becomes the final frontier. The winners in that world won’t be those who go global, but those who can feel local everywhere at once.

MIDiA will explore more themes around AI's impact at our upcoming webinar, The State of AI and Music, a free virtual event taking place on April 28. Register to attend here.