Sydney, Australia, where APRA AMCOS is based. Photo Credit: Cheney Qian
By 2028, an estimated 23% of music creators’ revenue “will be at risk due to” generative AI, according to a new report on the unprecedented technology.
That nearly 150-page report comes from APRA AMCOS, which surveyed 4,274 of its member songwriters, composers, and publishers in connection with the analysis. Factoring for these responses, expert interviews, and existing earnings-distribution data, the Sydney-headquartered entity arrived at the mentioned 23% “potential damage” figure.
Zeroing in on the music markets of Australia and New Zealand, this percentage would mark an approximately $152.97 million (AU$227 million) hit in 2028 alone – with the sum cracking an estimated total of $349.82 million (AU$519 million) between 2024 and 2028, according to the document.
At least as described by the report, though, the far-from-ideal revenue risk isn’t stopping music professionals from tapping into AI. All told, 38% of those surveyed confirmed using “AI in their work with music and creation in general,” and 5% said they’d gotten in the habit of capitalizing on artificial intelligence “consistently or nearly always.”
Another 27% of respondents said they’d steadfastly refused to utilize AI to that point, with 20% preferring to avoid the tools.
And on a brighter note, the 38% figure doesn’t solely represent instances where participants threw in the creative towel; just 14% of respondents (and nearly one in five between the ages of 45 and 54) conceded to using AI “in my creative activity with music.”
However, the incorporation of AI into mixing and mastering, social media, artwork creation, and several additional categories contributed substantially to the 38% usage total as well.
Doubling back to the 14% of survey participants who’d opted to let AI take the creative reins, a concerning 56% admitted to generating lyrics. “Ideation/To explore new musical horizons” placed second with 54%, immediately ahead of vocal synthesis (34%) and sound synthesis (28%), the report shows.
Finally, respondents were more united in their opposition to artificial intelligence. A cumulative 8% said they had a somewhat positive or very positive view of AI, and 82% acknowledged worries that its growing prevalence “in music could lead to music creators no longer being able to make a living from their work.”
On this front, it can safely be said that the AI music wheels are in motion – with all signs pointing to consistent technical improvements for the foreseeable future. Among many other things, litigation is ongoing against generative models that allegedly trained on protected media without authorization, and different artificial intelligence music products yet are also arriving on the scene
