0:02 Hey everybody, I'm Rick Bato. In today's
0:04 episode, I'm going to tell you who I
0:07 think has already won the AI music race
0:11 and why. Okay, so if you go to the app
0:13 store right now and you look up the most
0:15 downloaded music apps, you'll see
0:18 Spotify is number one, YouTube Music
0:20 number two, Shazam, which is basically
0:22 like a search thing. If you're hearing a
0:23 song in the mall and you want to know
0:25 what it is, you hit Shazam, it'll tell
0:28 you what it is. And then the fourth issu
0:30 the AI music app. Now recently there
0:31 have been some big announcements
0:35 regarding AI music. The first is that
0:37 UMG and UDO have partnered after
0:40 settling a copyright lawsuit creating a
0:43 new music AI platform. The new platform
0:45 launching in 2026 will be trained on
0:48 licensed music from UMG's catalog
0:49 providing revenue for artists and
0:51 songwriters. uh it doesn't say anything
0:53 about the label because you know that
0:55 most of the money will actually go to
0:56 the label. The original UDIO platform
0:59 will be altered and the existing users
1:01 will be transitioned to a new model
1:02 which will have different terms of
1:04 service and features such as the ability
1:07 to create music in the style of participating
1:09 participating
1:11 UMG artists. And next in the past week
1:14 there was an announcement that Warner
1:15 Music Group has reached a deal with
1:19 Sunno to do roughly the same thing. If
1:21 you want to compare the adoption of the
1:23 two AI music platforms, all you need to
1:25 do is go to the app store and look at
1:28 how many reviews they have. Sunno, as
1:31 you can see here, has 141,000 reviews
1:36 versus UDIO, which has a mere 1.2,000.
1:39 That is a massive difference. So, why is
1:43 Sunno being adopted more than Udo? Well,
1:45 I don't know. Maybe it's that it's way
1:47 easier to use, way easier to create a
1:50 song. Everyone that I know that's using
1:51 AI, and I'm talking professional
1:53 songwriters all over the place, have
1:55 admitted to me privately and some on
1:58 camera that they're using. They just
2:00 are. They're also using Clawude. They're
2:02 using Gemini, they're using ChatchBT.
2:05 But for music creation, for ideas, for
2:08 production, for melody ideas to help
2:10 them complete songs. And it's not just
2:12 professional musicians. It's people like
2:15 me and you that are using it. My main
2:17 use of it is on here to just demonstrate
2:19 the features and make people aware of
2:21 how these particular platforms are
2:23 progressing. But a lot of people that I
2:25 know that have written songs their whole
2:27 lives but couldn't ever get in a studio
2:29 to demo them. They're taking their
2:30 songwriter demos where they're just
2:32 playing acoustic guitar and singing.
2:34 They're putting it in there and they're
2:37 creating what sound like professional
2:39 arrangements with a professional singer.
2:40 And frankly, a lot of people up in
2:42 Nashville, if they want to pitch a song,
2:44 instead of going in like they used to
2:46 and doing a demo session with pro
2:49 session players, they just put it into
2:51 Sunno and they create that and then they
2:53 pitch their songs to actual real human
2:56 artists. At the end of September, Sunno
2:58 unveiled a new feature called Hooks.
3:01 What Hooks is, it's an AI music platform
3:03 that lets users pair [music] short video
3:06 clip with a Sunno song to create and
3:08 share music focused content. It's
3:10 designed to help musicians tell stories,
3:12 promote their music, and connect with
3:15 fans, similar to platforms like Tik Tok.
3:16 You know, I actually just showed hooks
3:19 to my daughter Leila, and she's like,
3:21 "Yeah, it's like Tik Tok except boring."
3:23 So, you may ask yourself, "Well, why do
3:26 you even want this?" Well, people are
3:29 using this platform all the time. You
3:31 can't believe how many people I know
3:33 that are using Sunno, sending me stuff.
3:35 You can see all the plays on here. If
3:37 you go there, there's video after video
3:39 with hundreds of thousands of plays on
3:41 hooks. And frankly, it's just like Tik
3:44 Tok is as a social media platform for
3:45 people that want to share their songs
3:47 that they create using this platform.
3:49 They're going to do it there. They're
3:50 going to do it on UDO. They can do it
3:52 legally. They're not going to be in fear
3:54 of it being taken down off YouTube or
3:57 off Spotify. It's all licensed. They can
4:00 use the Drake AI. They can use the Ed
4:02 Sheeran AI, the Bruno Mars AI. I'm sure
4:05 they're going to have charts that uh
4:07 eventually will go to Spotify. Once the
4:10 things are actually licensed, they can
4:11 play them on Spotify and they have the
4:13 licensed AI things. I said this two
4:15 years ago, there's going to be Drake and
4:17 then Drake AI. There's going to be the
4:19 Beatles and then the Beatles AI. This is
4:20 going to be on Apple Music. It's going
4:21 to be on Spotify. It's going to be
4:23 everywhere. Jimmyi Hendricks, Jimmyi
4:26 Hendricks AI, The Weekend, The Weekend
4:29 AI. And people will accept these. This
4:31 is all about the attention economy. Now,
4:33 some of you are like, "I'm never going
4:34 to listen to AI music." And I'm like,
4:37 "Yeah, yeah." That's like me when I see
4:40 people talking about having robots. I'm
4:42 not going to have a robot in my house.
4:43 Who wants to have a robot? It's
4:45 ridiculous, right? You got this thing
4:47 that spies on you the whole time and can
4:49 unalive you or let people know when
4:50 you're not around. I mean, it's
4:52 ridiculous, right? At least that's what
4:53 I think. But there's plenty of people
4:55 that think, "Oh, I'm going to have a
4:56 robot. It's going to do all my stuff.
4:58 It's going to take out the trash, do the
5:00 dishes, and everything." I mean, it's
5:03 absurd to think about for me. Just like
5:05 AI music, some people think is absurd
5:07 and other people are like, "Oh my god,
5:08 this is the greatest thing that ever
5:11 happened." I had someone uh when I was
5:12 in the UK, I think, or maybe in San
5:14 Francisco, I can't remember. In one of
5:16 the Q&As's at one of my live shows,
5:19 raise his hand, old guy, like actually
5:21 older than me, probably in his 70s. He
5:23 said, "Rick, I want to thank you for
5:25 introducing me to Sunno a couple years
5:28 ago because I'm a poet and I've written
5:30 songs for my entire life and here's a
5:33 way that I could actually make him into
5:35 music." It's like, "Okay, that's cool."
5:37 So, for all these reasons that I'm
5:39 talking about, the ease of use of the
5:42 platform, the subscribers that they
5:43 have, according to a Wall Street Journal
5:45 article from a couple weeks ago, it says
5:48 the AI startup has raised 250 million as
5:51 recently and says the annual revenue has
5:53 reached $200 million. Now, even if this
5:55 is overexaggerated, they're making a lot
5:59 of money. And to me, they've already won
6:01 the AI music race because of that,
6:03 because they've they've produced the
6:05 most viable platform. And it's kind of
6:06 interesting if you think about this
6:09 versus these AI platforms trying to get
6:11 to AGI or any of these other things
6:13 they're talking about. So think about
6:15 this. These companies, AI music
6:18 companies are only focusing on music.
6:20 Okay? They don't have to have every
6:24 topic known to man and data centers that
6:25 are massive that take all these
6:27 resources and everything and it cost
6:29 hundreds of billions of dollars of
6:31 investment to get going. It's isolated
6:34 to this one thing, music. And to me,
6:35 these are the companies that are going
6:37 to be more successful. The ones that
6:39 just focus on a particular topic, not
6:41 ones that are trying to do every topic
6:44 of everything all at once. You know,
6:47 when people ask me about AI, I'm like,
6:49 they're just massive pattern
6:53 recognizers. They retrieve and remix and
6:56 that's it. They basically can only do
6:58 the things that they're trained on. Are
7:00 they going to be JS Bach? No, they're
7:01 not. Are they going to be John Cold
7:03 Train? No. Are they going to be the
7:04 Beatles? No. They're not going to be
7:07 able to create in spite of what a lot of
7:09 people will say and I'm sure plenty of
7:10 people in the comments. They're not
7:12 going to create things beyond what
7:14 they're being trained at. Love to know
7:16 your thoughts. Hit subscribe, leave a
