The Day the Music Was Reborn
A Case Study on AI Music and Its Implications
Hi friend,
How are you? I hope you’re doing well.
To close 2025 in a splash, here is a storytelling trend you should definitely pay attention to, as it has profound implications on creativity, storytelling, and I’d dare say, what defines us humans.
Ever wondered how much it costs to produce a single hit song by your favorite artist? Yeah, the one you always listen to while driving or jogging.
Here are rough time and cost estimates I consulted with Google Gemini:
Crazy high, right? True, we’re talking about an A-lister artist.
Now compare this to an experiment I did using the Suno app, an AI music generator that was launched two years ago.
First, some backstory.
I could have easily had the app handle the entire end-to-end song production, but I wanted to retain some sense of ownership in the creative process.
At least 5%…
So here are the steps I took:
Finding the theme: One of my favorite narratives, I bet you came across in this newsletter, is the importance of Ambiguous Challenges. The logic is simple: if you get everything you want, you’ll very soon lose interest.
Of course, I’m not against winning; all I’m saying is that by default, we’re wired to solve problems and tackle uncertainties. I covered this in:
So, I grabbed a line from the Sora video I did for How Not To Blow a Gasket story.
Then I came up with the chorus line for the song to set the overarching theme:
”The climb is more interesting than the destination. The top is just a fleeting moment.”Creating the song lyrics: I used ChatGPT 5.1 Pro to come up with a crossover song (country + pop) for a female voice, using the above chorus line.
I was blown away by the result and on my first try, as you’ll soon hear for yourself.Producing the song on the Suno mobile app: I used the free version, where you get 50 credits every day, which equals 10 songs. I described the song: an uplifting crossover song by a female singer, added some hashtags, then pasted the song’s lyrics. I also used ChatGPT to create the artist's cover image and identity.
Meet Lila Hartwood, everybody :)
In less than a minute using the Suno app, I received the fully produced song.Give it a listen:
Click here to listen to the full song Total time: 10 minutes.
Total cost: 0
What does it all mean?
Lay of the land
Of course, I’m not comparing the result to a top hit performer.
I’d say Chat GPT had a ball with a 5+ minute lyrics length. However, I’d say after a few listens, the song had a pretty strong stickiness power in my brain.
I liked some of the unexpected verses like:
The top is just a Polaroid shot.”
But hey, the above workflow has already made a proven commercial traction.
A classic example is Telisha “Nikki” Jones, the Suno creator behind the viral AI music artist Xania Monet, securing a $3 million deal with Hallwood Media.
Other successful AI-generated artists, including Breaking Rust, The Velvet Sundown, and Solomon Ray, have topped Billboard charts and gained millions of streams on Spotify.
Suno is part of many other AI music generators like AIVA, Udio, or Mumbert - all can produce an entire song from a single text prompt.
Legal status
In one word - precarious.
For example, if you use the Suno free version, your song is owned by Suno. If you pay the monthly $8, you own the song and can use it commercially.
Having said that, since no human was involved in creating the song, it’s not copyrightable. As we often see, the technology is running much faster than legislation.
So you take your chances.
Major AI copyright lawsuits include UMG vs. Suno/Udio, labels vs. Anthropic, NYT vs. OpenAI, Authors Guild vs. OpenAI, and Getty Images vs. Stability AI over alleged use of copyrighted content in training.
Having said that, The Business Research Company evaluated the global AI in the Music market as being valued at $4.48 billion in 2025 and on track to reach $10.48 billion by 2029.
So, expect new regulations to emerge to accommodate this influx of next-gen AI music composers.
The larger tech evolution
If you zoom out, you can easily see that AI-generated music is part of a much larger evolution of virtual personas. We saw it with a slew of top virtual influencers on Instagram like Lil Miquela, Shudu, Imma, Kyra, and Hatsune Miku.
The bottom line is that we’ve always been playing with virtual representations of our imagined best selves: through personal websites, blogs, social profiles, digital twins like Sora’s Cameos, AI agents, and soon smart robots.
Functions have changed, but the chase for an ideal virtual presence is constant; from info sharing, glitzy buzz engines, to more utility-driven - saving time and cost.
Another aspect worth noting is that, in essence, we’re looking at another use case of full product personalization. The ability for consumers to customize a product - in this case, a song - to their ultimate liking.
Think prior examples like Nike by You, Adidas miadidas, Vans Customs, Converse Custom, Ray-Ban Remix, Levi’s Custom, Casetify custom cases, Coca-Cola personalized bottles, and M&M’s custom prints.
Similarly, music fans today are transitioning from passive consumers to active creators of music. That means, they can provide their unique taste criteria when creating songs.
If you think about your favorite song, you’d know there was something about the lyrics and/or music that touched you, as it was related to some aspects of your life.
“It spoke to me” is a comment a fan shared about the music of AI-generated artist Xania Monet.
In my experiment above, I didn’t leave relatability to chance or the AI, but ensured I baked a meaningful theme (at least to me) into the song from the onset.
Now the song is much more meaningful to me.
As you can expect, next people started creating AI-generated music videos for their AI-generated music, and this way, listeners receive the full experience they normally get from top human artists.
If you’re thinking, this is all great, but live shows are the last bastion that remains, right?
Well, think again, the most successful live event led by a non-human artist is ABBA Voyage virtual concert, featuring holograms of the band in their 1979 prime.
I bet we’ll start seeing cheap virtual live show toolkits popping out.
The same impact we see in movies with actors that can pretty much live forever, and using AI magic can be turned younger or older based on the story.
A good example is Here (2024).
As such, like vibe coding to aid non-programmers, apps like Suno help bridge the skill gap for users who would love to create their own music but don’t have the training and skills to create songs.
Compare that to the above long list of people involved in creating a single song, and the training they had to go through to execute their respective parts.
The ethical angle
Thinking back at all the artists I loved growing up, until today, and the massive work it took for them to produce their art.
Spilling out their hearts, their failures, hopes, and dreams in a song - it made me more appreciative of their music.
This includes the many backstories - I bet you’ve heard over the years - about how a hit song was born and made it against all odds.
Beyond the glitzy artist idolizing, it’s no doubt hard work. The physical effort involved in roadshows, performing in front of cheering audiences, who expect them to be at their best, despite their current moods.
AI-generated music, like any AI-generated content, is nothing but repurposing or sampling existing content available on the Internet.
From this perspective, it breaches artists’ copyrighted content. To avoid lawsuits, AI startups started licensing content so they can use it in their LLM training.
What the distant future holds
If and when AI reaches Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), it will become smarter than humans and can reason and come up with new, original ideas, and not rely on repurposing old content.
Aggressive projections by Elon Musk and Sam Altman predict it will happen as early as 2027-2030, while more conservative ones state much farther: 2060 and beyond.
Once we reach ASI, we’ll enter a whole realm of creative storytelling done by machines with completely new public tastes, regulations, and untold roles for us humans.
Music is just another storytelling container, like a book, movie, or painting. Last year, I shared a story about a 1969’s old but gold hit that provided an unusual prediction.
I’m talking about the one-hit wonder “In the Year 2525” by Zager and Evans, two farm boys from Nebraska, who shared their forecast for the future relationship of man and machine:
As you may have gathered by now, I’m an optimist + realist.
I see tremendous value AI can bring. Yet, it’s up to us to set global business, legal and ethical safeguards to let prosperity reach its full potential.
This will break the centralization of power with the few tech giants - aka the “magnificent seven” - and open up a more responsible value sharing.
What’s your take?
I wish you and your family the happiest of holidays!
I’ll be back on January 4th!
See you in 2026!
Best,
- Shlomi
Shlomi Ron
Founder, Visual Storytelling Institute
story > visual > emotion > experience
shlomi@visualstorytell.com
P.S. Loved this story? Take your visual storytelling skills to the next level by upgrading to a paid subscription as a Narrative Partner.
You’ll get:
The “Top 10 Business Storytelling Formulas” eBook—practical frameworks to craft marketing that captivates and converts.
Exclusive content + bi-weekly Sunday insights to sharpen your narrative thinking, decode trends, and apply visual storytelling with confidence.
Full archive access for endless inspiration, fresh ideas, and proven techniques—ready whenever creativity strikes.
Brilliant article.
As an independent, self-writing, self-producing musician, I like to think that the influx in AI music makes 'real' music even more special, but with the speed that the AI music industry is moving at, the world's just getting a little scarier for artists like me.
Anyhow, great piece.
Take care,
Mo