UMG and Stability AI Join Forces for AI Music

In a landmark move for the music industry, Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, and Stability AI, a leading generative AI company, have announced a strategic alliance. This collaboration is set to develop the next generation of professional music creation tools, powered by responsibly trained generative AI to support artists, producers, and songwriters across the globe.

A New Alliance for AI in Music

The partnership will focus on creating fully licensed and commercially safe AI music tools, with a strong emphasis on placing artists at the core of the development process. By prioritizing feedback from the creative community, UMG and Stability AI aim to guide the creation of technology that truly serves the needs of musicians and preserves the integrity of the art form.

Stability AI’s research and product teams will work closely with UMG and its artists to explore new concepts in recording and composition. This hands-on approach will provide crucial insights into how artists adopt and engage with these innovative technologies, ensuring the final products are both powerful and intuitive.

UMG's Vision for Responsible AI

Michael Nash, Chief Digital Officer & EVP of Universal Music Group, highlighted the artist-first approach of this initiative:

“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.”

UMG has consistently been at the forefront of AI innovation, forging industry-first agreements with partners like YouTube, TikTok, and Meta, while actively fighting to protect artists from unlicensed training and copyright infringement. The company is committed to developing responsibly trained AI products that provide accurate attribution and empower creators.

Stability AI's Commitment to Creative Tools

Stability AI is a leader in commercially safe generative audio, with its Stable Audio family of models trained exclusively on licensed data. This partnership with UMG extends their vision of building professional-grade creative tools into the music industry.

Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI, stated:

"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.”

This collaboration follows Stability AI's recent strategic partnerships with Electronic Arts (EA) to transform game development and WPP to innovate in marketing and advertising, reinforcing its commitment to accelerating creativity across industries without compromising artistic control.

About the Partners

Stability AI

Stability AI is the enterprise-ready creative partner for teams and creators, delivering professional-grade generative AI tools and solutions for media generation and editing across image, video, 3D, and audio to enable creative production at scale. Stability AI sparked the generative AI revolution with the release of Stable Diffusion in August 2022, putting generative technology in the hands of millions of creators globally.

Universal Music Group

At Universal Music Group, we exist to shape culture through the power of artistry. UMG is the world leader in music-based entertainment, with a broad array of businesses engaged in recorded music, music publishing, merchandising and audiovisual content. Featuring the most comprehensive catalogue of recordings and songs across every musical genre, UMG identifies and develops artists and produces and distributes the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful music in the world.