Apple and Google Add Generative AI Music Features
Apple and Google are integrating generative AI features into their music services. The updates will add capabilities for AI-driven music creation, curation, and personalized playlists. This move signals the continued mainstreaming of generative AI into major consumer platforms.
- Apple's new AI features for Logic Pro, released May 13, 2024, include "Session Players" which are AI-powered virtual musicians for bass and keyboard, building on the existing "Drummer" feature. Also included is a "Stem Splitter" to separate audio files into vocals, bass, drums, and other components, and "ChromaGlow" for adding warmth and different saturation styles to tracks. - Google's MusicFX, formerly MusicLM, allows users to create music from text prompts and has evolved to include a "DJ Mode" for real-time looping and mixing. The underlying model has been improved to generate higher quality audio and longer tracks, up to 70 seconds. - Google's Gemini can now generate 30-second music tracks from text, photos, or videos using the Lyria 3 model from DeepMind. This feature can also produce custom lyrics and is available in multiple languages for users over 18. - Apple Music is testing a feature called "Playlist Playground" in the iOS 26.4 beta, which uses AI to generate 25-song playlists from text prompts, complete with custom titles and cover art. - Google's AI-generated tracks include a digital watermark from SynthID, a tool developed by DeepMind, which is imperceptible to the human eye and ear but allows for identification of AI-generated content. - Usage of Google's music generation is capped; free users can create up to 10 tracks per day, while premium subscribers can generate between 20 and 100. - Major record labels, including Sony, UMG, and Warner, have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against generative AI music services Suno and Udio, alleging the unlicensed use of copyrighted sound recordings to train their models. - The core legal debate centers on whether training AI models on copyrighted music constitutes "fair use." While AI companies argue their use is transformative, record labels claim it is mass infringement.
