The Music Industry's AI Reckoning
Thu Feb 05 2026
This week, I’m joined by music journalist, Sowmya Krishnamurthy, for a candid conversation about AI’s growing role in music and what this means for both the artists and for us as listeners. AI-generated songs are now flooding streaming platforms, and sometimes we don't even know it.
Together we dive into how AI is impacting the music industry, from the rise of fully synthetic artists to the economic pressure facing working musicians. Does it matter if a song was made by a human? What happens when music becomes infinite, frictionless, and engineered rather than lived.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy is a music journalist and pop culture expert. Her work has been featured in Time, Rolling Stone, Complex, XXL, Playboy, Highsnobiety, and NPR. She is the author of Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion and the forthcoming The Blueprint: Roc-A-Fella Records and the Culture of Capitalism. She is a graduate of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
Follow Sowmya on Instagram @SowmyaK, and X @SowmyaK.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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This week, I’m joined by music journalist, Sowmya Krishnamurthy, for a candid conversation about AI’s growing role in music and what this means for both the artists and for us as listeners. AI-generated songs are now flooding streaming platforms, and sometimes we don't even know it. Together we dive into how AI is impacting the music industry, from the rise of fully synthetic artists to the economic pressure facing working musicians. Does it matter if a song was made by a human? What happens when music becomes infinite, frictionless, and engineered rather than lived. Sowmya Krishnamurthy is a music journalist and pop culture expert. Her work has been featured in Time, Rolling Stone, Complex, XXL, Playboy, Highsnobiety, and NPR. She is the author of Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion and the forthcoming The Blueprint: Roc-A-Fella Records and the Culture of Capitalism. She is a graduate of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Follow Sowmya on Instagram @SowmyaK, and X @SowmyaK. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.