AI has entered our world quickly and seamlessly. As industries adapt and automate at speed, the music industry finds itself divided between sceptics and enthusiasts. And nowhere is that tension more visible than in electronic music, a genre that has always been built on the underground and the close relationship between humans and machines.
Deezer, the French streaming platform that has been the most transparent in tracking AI content, reported that the volume of fully AI-generated songs being uploaded to its service grew from 10,000 tracks a day at the start of 2025 to 60,000 by January 2026, roughly two in five of all daily uploads. Apple Music, for its part, disclosed it had identified and demonetised approximately two billion fraudulent streams in 2025 alone, many linked to AI-generated content used to game royalty systems. Spotify, meanwhile, has introduced a three-tier classification — human-created, AI-assisted, and fully AI-generated, requiring creators to declare which category their work falls into.
The legal and rights conversations are still being worked through. The ethics remain murky. But the tools keep getting better, and music creation is taking a new direction. Can we still call ourselves artists if we use AI? Can we use it creatively as an advancement of technology rather than a shortcut? And where exactly is the line between cheating and innovating?
Over the past year, I’ve been putting these questions to artists and label owners across the electronic scene. Their answers reveal a community that is thoughtful, divided, and far from panicking… but paying very close attention.
Just Another Tool
Electronic music has never been shy about adopting new technology. From the first drum machines to DAWs, from samplers to software synths, every wave of innovation was met with the same question: does this replace the artist, or does it empower them? The answer, historically, has always been the latter. Most working producers in the scene today are placing AI firmly in that same tradition.
“I see AI as just another tool. For me, electronic music has always been about the relationship between humans and machines, and in that sense, AI is part of a much longer conversation — not a rupture. AI can help with ideas, organisation, and even push you out of habits, but it shouldn’t become the voice making the decisions.”
— Echonomist — Innervisions, HABITAT
That framing, AI as collaborator rather than creator, comes up repeatedly. OFFAIAH, the classically trained East London producer behind hits on Defected, has hands-on experience with the tools themselves.
“I’ve tried all the toys — Udio, Suno, RipX, Stemrollers, etc. They’re incredible for inspiration when you’re stuck or for generating textures quickly. But the moment a tool writes the actual musical idea for me, I lose interest. The magic still happens when it’s my fingers, my mind, my references. AI will probably produce 80% of functional dance music in ten years, but the 20% that moves people on a deeper level will still come from humans who lived something and need expression. I’m cool using it as a super-advanced plugin, but I’m not letting it drive the car… yet!”
— OFFAIAH — ALL FIRE Records / Defected Records
Luca Venezia, the Berlin-based artist known as Curses adds in to this perspective and is the most pragmatic:
“Things are always evolving. Instead of being afraid, find out how it can help you. Music made fully with AI sounds like garbage, but analysing a frequency that is muddying up a mix with AI — why not?”
— Curses — Slowmotion Records / Italians Do It Better
The Threat Is Real… But So Is the Nuance
Not everyone is comfortable with where things are heading. For Local Suicide’s Dina, who alongside partner Max runs a label Iptamenos Discos, the unease is visible even as she tries to stay open-minded.
“I definitely see it as something in between an opportunity and a threat. It’s unsettling to see AI-generated tracks climbing the charts, but I don’t believe it will ever replace genuine human creativity. Music is about emotion, experience, and authenticity — things that are deeply human. That said, I do think AI will become more integrated as a tool, helping with certain technical or time-consuming parts of the process. Used consciously, it can support creativity rather than replace it. The key will be how artists choose to use it, and where they draw the line.”
— Dina — Local Suicide (Iptamenos Discos / Ninja Tune GSA)
M.E.M.O., the Málaga-born producer with a deep catalogue on Mobilee, goes further. His response to the AI wave has been proactive – he launched a new label, Made By Humans, explicitly as a counterpoint. For him, the issue isn’t just aesthetic. It’s about the soul.
“AI is fascinating and dangerous. It can help, but it will never feel what a human feels when striking a note. Music needs mistakes, imperfections, scars. If everything is perfect, the soul dies. That energy that flows from artist to audience doesn’t exist with AI — and I believe that energy is 80% of a work of art.”
— M.E.M.O. — Mobilee Records / Made By Humans label
Ralf Kollmann sees a parallel cultural split already forming, one that echoes the underground/mainstream divide that has defined electronic music for decades.
“I can see a countermovement happening back to analog gear and handcrafted music, splitting music producers and audiences into different cultural groups. We called it Mainstream vs. Underground back in the days. So I see a future for independent art and culture.”
— Ralf Kollmann — Mobilee Records
Infrastructure, Rights, and Unanswered Questions
The creative debate is only part of the picture. As major labels sign licensing deals with AI companies, familiar questions resurface: who benefits? Will revenue flow to artists and songwriters, or be absorbed at the top?
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has been unequivocal: AI companies must license the music they train on and distribute revenue fairly down the chain. Whether that happens in practice remains uncertain. Florian Kogel, LAS Label Manager at Believe Digital GmbH, captures the regulatory limbo precisely:
“If clear regulations are found, AI could be a great tool. That’s why I think you should be open to it. The boundaries just haven’t really been drawn yet in terms of how far you can or should use AI, and so on. (…) And that’s where the problem starts — what would be allowed and what wouldn’t? The topic is quite complex and, in my view, still very much in its early stages.”
— Florian Kogel — LAS Label Manager, Believe Digital GmbH
Apple Music’s disclosure of two billion fraudulent streams adds another layer. AI isn’t only changing how music is made, it is being used to exploit the royalty pool, generating vast volumes of low-cost tracks to siphon income away from working artists.
What AI Cannot Replace
No algorithm can replicate the feeling of a human being standing in front of a crowd, performing live, and the energy that creates. That is the one place AI cannot follow, and for many artists, it is where the real conversation begins.
“It’s going to be so saturated that eventually you’re gonna be like, ‘I like the song, but how can I see this person live?’ And that live is going to come back.”
— Floyd Lavine — Sapiens Records
Nikka Lorak described a phone-free show in Goa where the audience gave themselves fully to the moment.
“The level of presence and emotional engagement was unlike anything I’ve experienced elsewhere. It reminded me what a real connection between artist and audience can feel like.”
— Nikka Lorak — Animarum Records
Creating a connection and art live as a ritual predates every technology we have ever invented. And that is not nostalgia. It is simply what music, at its most powerful, has always been.
AI Platforms as a New Ecosystem
While working on Suno’s creator program, I have discovered something unexpected. The most common use cases were radically personal rather than trying to sound like someone already famous. Difficult emotions translated into lyrics, poems brought to life, thank-you messages turned into songs, as well as more light-hearted almost comedy-like songs. AI being used not necessarily as a shortcut to stardom, but as a way to hear your own inner world in sound for the first time. That is a new kind of music, perhaps less artistic in the traditional sense, but perhaps more therapeutic or more private. And perhaps its own kind of art, existing alongside rather than replacing what more established and trained artists do.
New ecosystems can form alongside the old. Platforms like Suno function as a mix of a music tool and a social network, building communities that can coexist with DSPs and the release-and-tour model. Artists have more tools than ever to build independent audiences. What will still break through the noise is authenticity. Increasingly, it is the audiences, not gatekeepers, who decide what resonates.
To AI or not AI?
The question is not AI or no AI. It is whether you are using it to deepen what you already do or to avoid becoming someone with something real to say.
The tools will continue evolving. The debates will not disappear. The way we interact with music will inevitably change, just as it always has. But every artist I spoke to agreed on one thing: the ability to connect with an audience in an authentic way remains entirely human.
AI may write melodies, generate stems, analyse frequencies, and flood platforms with content. It may even reshape the economics of the industry. But it cannot replace intention. It cannot replace lived experience. And it cannot stand in a room and feel what happens when a crowd moves together in response to something real.
Perhaps that is the quiet answer emerging from all sides of the debate. AI is not the end of artistry. Nor is it its future. It is a powerful and disruptive tool that is still being defined. What matters, as always, is who is holding it, and why.