An exploratory study on the increasing involvement of Artificial Intelligence
(AI) technology in the Music Industry and its impact on an artist’s earnings
and profits for the music label

Reyyan Hanswani

doi:10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.024

Title: An exploratory study on the increasing involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in the Music Industry and its impact on an artist’s earnings and profits for the music label
Authors: Reyyan Hanswani
Journal: International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research (IJSSER) ISSN: 2455-8834 Volume: 11 Issue: 10 Publication Date: October 2026 DOI: 10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.024
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Reyyan Hanswani Swiss International Scientific School In Dubai
MLA 8 Hanswani, Reyyan. "An exploratory study on the increasing involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in the Music Industry and its impact on an artist’s earnings and profits for the music label." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, vol. 11, no. 10, Oct. 2026, pp. 5780-5793, doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.024. Accessed Oct. 2026. APA 6 Hanswani, R. (2026, October). An exploratory study on the increasing involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in the Music Industry and its impact on an artist’s earnings and profits for the music label. Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, 11(10), 5780-5793. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.024 Chicago Hanswani, Reyyan. "An exploratory study on the increasing involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in the Music Industry and its impact on an artist’s earnings and profits for the music label." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research 11, no. 10 (October 2026), 5780-5793. Accessed October, 2026. https://doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.024.
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ABSTRACT: Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) can now produce a finished track from a simple text prompt, at almost no additional cost per track. At the same time, streaming has become the music industry’s most prominent source of revenue, accounting for 69.6% of global recorded-music revenue. Streaming platforms pay revenue to artists based on the percentage contribution of the track’s streams to the total streams in the platform, through a fixed monthly pool. This exploratory study examines how the growth of Gen-AI and the volume of songs produced by it affects the earnings of artists and the profits of music labels as well as streaming platforms, and whether an artist’s popularity changes this impact. The study is based on a mixed methods approach using secondary data only, from academic research, industry reports and public disclosures from streaming platforms and labels. The findings of this study reveal that AIproduced music is equally eligible for the monthly royalty pool as human music, where the problem essentially branches off: this decreases the amount paid to artists and labels due to the now lower comparative share of streams that they produce. About 10,000 fully AI-generated tracks were delivered to Deezer each day in 2025, and 24% of music creators' revenues are projected to be at risk by 2028. Small and emerging artists are likely to be impacted the most from the immense competition produced by AI production, whereas established artists are most prone to be targets of AI deepfakes. Although, labels are negatively affected in this way, they also gain through the licensing of music catalogues to AI companies. It is empirically evident that platforms and labels are also removing the use of AI content: Spotify scrubbed over 75 million spam tracks in one year, Sony Music asked for the removal of over 135,000 deepfakes and Apple Music protected roughly $17 million worth of royalties. However, the costs of these removals are not available on public domain. AI also benefits music production, particularly in technical tasks such as mixing and mastering, and lowers barrier to entry. The study concludes that clear labelling of AI-generated music, compensation mechanisms such as an AI-royalty fund, and licensed training data are needed to protect human artists' earnings.

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