Universal Music Group (UMG) has made two landmark announcements, marking a significant push into the AI-driven music creation space.
UMG announced the settlement of its copyright infringement lawsuit against AI music platform Udio. As part of the settlement, UMG and Udio will collaborate to launch a licensed AI music creation platform. The platform will allow users to create, stream, and share music in a fully licensed and protected environment. It will include fingerprinting, filtering, and other security features to safeguard intellectual property, while existing Udio services remain active during the transition. UMG artists and songwriters will receive additional revenue through new license agreements for both recorded music and publishing.
In a separate move, UMG revealed a strategic alliance with Stability AI to develop “next-generation professional music creation tools.” These tools will be powered by responsibly trained generative AI and designed to support the creative process of artists, producers, and songwriters globally. Stability AI will collaborate with UMG’s research and product teams, as well as UMG artists, to understand creator needs, explore new recording and composition concepts, and study how artists engage with AI technologies.
Michael Nash, Chief Digital Officer & EVP at UMG, said: “This agreement is an extension of our fundamental orientation that our artists and songwriters are the cornerstone of our business. With AI, as with everything else we do, we start with what best supports our work to help them achieve creative and commercial success and build from that foundation to forge new and better commercial and creative opportunities. And as we’ve made abundantly clear, we will only consider advancing AI tools and products based on models that are trained responsibly. We’re looking forward to working with Stability AI to deeply integrate AI tools development with the vision and creative ambitions of our artists and to the results and rewards this initiative offers to all.”
Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI, added, “UMG has long been a leader in technological innovation in music. This partnership marks the next chapter of music creation. At Stability AI, we put the artist at the center and build AI around their unique needs because real transformation has always come from a combination of art and science.”
UMG stated that its agreements with Udio and Stability AI are among the “industry-first AI-related agreements” alongside partnerships with companies such as YouTube, TikTok, Meta, KDDI, KLAY Vision, BandLab, Soundlabs, and Pro-Rata. The company emphasized that these collaborations are aimed at creating fully licensed, commercially safe AI music tools that preserve artistic integrity while benefiting rights holders and creators.
The Udio platform and Stability AI tools are expected to launch soon, marking a transformative step in integrating AI responsibly into music creation. balancing innovation with integrity—ushering in a future where AI-generated music operates not in defiance of artists’ rights, but in partnership with them.
