How Suno's AI Model Is Disrupting the Music Business w/ CEO Mikey Shulman | Billboard On The Record

So, it's the most controversial new company in music since Spotify or maybe even Napster. Already generating 7

even Napster. Already generating 7 million songs a day, according to an investor pitch deck, Sunno has quickly become a frontr runner in the AI music race. But it's also made its fair share

race. But it's also made its fair share of enemies along the way. That's because

Sunno's model is currently trained on copyrighted songs without a license.

They say that's fair use. The music

industry begs to differ. But now, Sunno has agreed to relaunch its model sometime later this year, using only licensed songs for training. But is that enough to make the music industry forgive and forget? To talk through this

pivotal moment in music, I'm joined today by Sunno CEO Mikey Schulman in this special companion episode of our Billboard cover story on the AI music company out today.

Mikey Schulman, welcome to On the Record. Thank you so much for being

Record. Thank you so much for being here.

>> So happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Okay. So, this is your first Grammy

me. Okay. So, this is your first Grammy week.

>> It is.

>> How has it been?

>> Uh, exhausting, but also a lot of fun.

Um, also learning a lot. Um, yeah, great experience.

>> Yeah. So, I saw you yesterday. So, I'm

I'm setting the scene here for our listeners that this is during Grammy week because this will come out in a month and in AI world, a lot can change in a month. So, just in case something changes, this is where we're at right

now. It's like end of January, start of

now. It's like end of January, start of February. Okay. So, I went by Sunno's

February. Okay. So, I went by Sunno's songwriting camp yesterday, which you've been running throughout the week, which has been really interesting. And you're

kind of inviting people in to go and see the process. And I'm wondering how many

the process. And I'm wondering how many of these songwriting camps have you guys been doing, and why is that important to your strategy as a company?

>> We've probably done a dozen or so.

>> Um, not all here.

>> Yeah.

>> Some in New York. It's a ton of fun to be there to be around creatives, but it's also um it's an amazing way um to

learn actually from both sides for um us to learn about how the best of the best use. Um it's inspiring for us and also

use. Um it's inspiring for us and also helps us build better products and for us to also show instead of tell um >> how is an incredible tool for

creativity. And so I know that yesterday

creativity. And so I know that yesterday um it was led by like is it usually that you get like a songwriter or producer to kind of curate a room or are you guys just kind of pulling from your list of people that you already know are

interested in Sunno and inviting them in?

>> There's a there's a few different flavors. I don't think there's one rule

flavors. I don't think there's one rule but um a songwriter or producer who has a vision to make a song or an album is a great goal. We don't even necessarily

great goal. We don't even necessarily need to finish the song or the album. Um

a lot of good stuff we'll have in there.

Um, often we do. Uh, usually we do, but that's not the only way, you know. Um,

and that knowledge share can happen in lots of different ways when you have the right group of people around.

>> Yeah. And I mean, the thing that really struck me about that camp because I got to sit in the room and watch some of the best musicians, top musicians in the world work using Sunno. And as was

telling me, he was like, "We made this song in 30 minutes." And it was start to finish. It sounded like a fully finished

finish. It sounded like a fully finished master recording that you could use for anything. And interestingly for them,

anything. And interestingly for them, they were uh essentially starting with a prompt with lyrics and then they were re-recording each of the bits with session musicians and then I ended up

kind of hearing the final product there.

But the fact that you could do that in 30 minutes, I think really blew my mind and some of the other folks who are also visiting the camp's minds because

I if you get to a point where like that's what songwriting camps are where you can whip through these songs in 30 minutes and have these fully finished masters. I just think about the

masters. I just think about the implications for the entire industry.

Your the output is going to be so much greater. Um, and so I'm I'm curious what

greater. Um, and so I'm I'm curious what you think of an artist's career like maybe five, ten years down the line once AI becomes a more normalized part of the songwriting process. Are artists going

songwriting process. Are artists going to be just whipping out songs and releasing songs more quickly than ever?

Or do you foresee artists still being very um intentional and slow with their choices on what they release and what they don't release?

>> I think it's going to be much more intentional. I think a lot of people are

intentional. I think a lot of people are going to release songs and you know as can make a song in 30 minutes. I

certainly cannot. You know the best of the best can do that. But what that means is not just more. It means the the highs are better and it means that the point of view that the artist is trying to bring to something can actually be

more curated if you're willing to be patient. And so yes, there's going to be

patient. And so yes, there's going to be a lot more music in five or 10 years.

It's super not obvious to me that um it just means artists are going to be putting out records every day or every week. You know, I think it means they'll

week. You know, I think it means they'll be making a lot more music, but not necessarily releasing a lot more music.

>> Yeah. Yeah, that's possible. And I mean, there are going to be some holdouts five, 10 years in the future. I know

there's holdouts right now who are not interested in using AI as part of their process, but it seems so clear to me that it speeds up the process so much and is uh ups your output. Do do you

think that there will still be 5 to 10 years from now competitive artists that do not use AI at all in their process?

at all at all. I think in in five or 10 years there's going to be little bits of AI everywhere. The same way there's

AI everywhere. The same way there's little bits of digital production everywhere and no one thought that would be a thing 50 years ago and there's little bits of autotune almost everywhere even though no one thought

that would be a thing. Um and probably when you go back and you listen to a song um that doesn't have it, you can hear it and you know it sounds beautiful in that way. And so, um, I think it's

going to be in in a lot of stuff, but I do think that, um, just like you find it, or I find it beautiful to sometimes have something that's not autotuned, um, there will be some people who want to do it the old way, and that's, um, that's

great. You know, we are not trying to

great. You know, we are not trying to make anyone do anything.

>> Yeah. And I'm wondering if you could give us a little bit of background about because I think for a lot of folks who don't follow the space very closely, it kind of feels like Sunno just appeared out of nowhere. So tell me about

developing the product with your co-founders in that very inception of Sunno.

>> We released the product about 3 years ago. When we did, it was barely

ago. When we did, it was barely passable. You know, you had to have

passable. You know, you had to have really um forgiving ears and you had to be willing to basically ignore a lot of defects in it. And um at the beginning actually we could only do 12 seconds of

music at a time.

>> And um that has just an entirely different use case if you can only do 12 seconds at a time. It's not exactly, you know, the the proverbial three guys in a garage, but we were we were we were four

co-founders um working out of one of our houses. Um and we thought this would be

houses. Um and we thought this would be too hard and we started to build a different product. And when we realized

different product. And when we realized that this wasn't too hard and we started to do it and we would just stay up really late making music with these things because we love it. And yes, we had the forgiving ears at the beginning

to be able to appreciate those crappy 12-second clips and uh just keep building and building and released the product. It was obvious pretty quickly

product. It was obvious pretty quickly that people really loved it, even when the music was not as good. And it's

because not only is it um a new toy for people to play with, which is always fun and a novelty item as a reason to try it, let's say, but um we realized very quickly people love making music.

Everybody loves making music. And when

you give people new ways to do that that is more accessible, you attract everyone. You attract Grammy winners and

everyone. You attract Grammy winners and you attract grandmothers. And um that's amazing. And we saw community build

amazing. And we saw community build pretty quickly. Um and that told us we

pretty quickly. Um and that told us we were on to something.

>> And okay, correct me if I'm wrong.

Wasn't there like did you drop it on Discord first thing? Okay. Yeah. Why?

>> Um you know, it's funny. Uh probably two reasons. One is there's a tool called

reasons. One is there's a tool called Midjourney. I don't know if you're

Midjourney. I don't know if you're familiar with it, which was um an image making bot um that was on Discord and had a lot of users and um it's an easy

thing to to copy that model. Um but the other thing is Discord was an incredible way to get a product to market very quickly. We don't have to build a UI. We

quickly. We don't have to build a UI. We

don't a user interface. We don't have to build anything fancy and it has a community built into it. you have in the same place people using the product and people talking about the product and people giving us feedback about the

product and that was immensely helpful and as that grew and that grew to hundreds of thousands of people pretty quickly. Um and then it's actually an

quickly. Um and then it's actually an exercise in curation of filtering out all of the noise because hundreds of thousands of people giving you feedback all at once is a little bit of tricky but that turned out to be incredibly

useful at the beginning and so many insights um that we had at the beginning were because of that community.

>> Okay. So, y'all went into this hoping to make a music model, but weren't sure if it was possible yet. I mean, a lot of people I remember back in like 2022 or so, were talking about how music was

still going to be pretty far away with generative AI. It was going to be very

generative AI. It was going to be very complex and difficult. Um, but you guys did it. But I'm I'm wondering why

did it. But I'm I'm wondering why because, you know, I think a lot of investors look at the music industry and think there's not much money to be made

there. It's not a super sound

there. It's not a super sound investment. Why did you guys know that

investment. Why did you guys know that you wanted to pursue that tough path of being a music technology company?

>> There there's something really important about following the thing that you want to do. And there's a zillion companies

to do. And there's a zillion companies building exactly what they think investors want. And that sounds boring

investors want. And that sounds boring honestly, building the thing that you want to build. Um that's like ultimate like this is hard building a company in any domain. And ultimately like that's

any domain. And ultimately like that's what keeps you excited about it every single day cuz yeah there's there's lots of hard parts. And so um I don't know if it was like a conscious thing of like I

don't think there was ever sitting down and saying well investors don't think music is a big business. Should we do it anyway? It was that wasn't even like a

anyway? It was that wasn't even like a discussion. It was just like of course

discussion. It was just like of course we're going to do >> Yeah. And all of you play music in some

>> Yeah. And all of you play music in some form or fashion, right?

>> And um in fact at our last job we all worked together. Um, we used to have jam

worked together. Um, we used to have jam sessions in my co-founder's basement like just to blow off steam after work.

Just there's your garage moment.

>> That is that that is the garage moment.

That is not the inception of the company, you know. We we were still working there for a few more years, but we just we were making music together and making music with your friends is really fun.

>> Yeah. And what's your instrument?

>> Uh, I play bass best. I play a little bit of piano. I I took a lot of lessons growing up and I'm like, okay.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And Okay. So Sunno recently um at the end of 2025 made a deal with Warner Music Group, which was a huge deal when the news dropped. Um this settled Warner's part of a lawsuit that the

three major music companies filed against as well as a similar lawsuit against YO in summer 2024. I'm wondering

why Warner was the one that you came to a deal with first.

>> You know, I'm not sure uh we're the right people to ask that question to.

There may be other people to ask that question to, but you know, I think we see them just as um incredible long-term thinking partners and people willing to try to figure out the future together because um like you said, it is a really

fastmoving space. Nobody knows exactly

fastmoving space. Nobody knows exactly what the future is going to look like, but having partners who are not only willing but excited to figure that out together is um amazing. on that. You

know, something that I hear a lot. Um,

this is my first Grammys week is like everyone everyone says, um, well, we know AI is coming. And I really attempt to not think that way because, um, it

may even be true, but you want to feel like you're not sitting back helpless and this thing is coming and it's either going to be amazing or terrible. Like

there's human agency here and we can shape the future and we can make it good for everybody. Um, or we can not shape

for everybody. Um, or we can not shape it and kind of roll the dice. And so

having a partner who very much wants to do the first one is really good.

>> I know that in previous u big music tech deals between the majors and like Spotify for example and other big tech companies um the majors have sometimes been able to get equity as does Warner have any equity inso?

>> I think it's a little early to discuss like the particulars uh of the partnership um but uh stay tuned. I

think later this year more will come.

>> And as part of that deal, you guys are going to relaunch at some point in 2026. Relaunch your

model with licensed music that has opted in. And right now there's only the deal

in. And right now there's only the deal with Warner. I'm curious as this

with Warner. I'm curious as this develops. I mean, is is there a

develops. I mean, is is there a potential that Sunna could be left in a tough spot if let's say Universal and Sony don't decide to make deals? And

then, you know, I I mean, how many songs do you need to opt in to make the model just as great as before? Are you

concerned about making deals in time for this relaunch?

>> You know, it's it's a really good question. Um,

question. Um, I don't think I can give you a straightforward answer how many songs you need. And, um, it's a funny thing.

you need. And, um, it's a funny thing.

Every model launch, I think it's somewhat obvious that things have gotten a lot better every model. Um, and

there's always people who miss the old model when we do a new model launch. And

so I am sure that that will happen again. But we feel very good about what

again. But we feel very good about what we're going to build together with Warner. Truthfully, I think the,

Warner. Truthfully, I think the, you know, people ask me a lot. They

assume that we think at Sunno that like the record labels don't matter. The big

music companies matter. They matter a lot. And so you want to partner with the

lot. And so you want to partner with the biggest companies in the industry, not because they have a lot of music, but because they are like culturally extremely important. And so I think that

extremely important. And so I think that is really the thing um that we think much more about and not exactly how many songs there are.

>> But I imagine there like has to be some sort of a ballpark number of how many songs you need and how many different genres you need in order to make a music model that really can capture uh the

breadth that is popular music.

>> Yeah, it's really it's really hard to say like more is always better. It's

really hard to give definitive answers here and um whenever you change anything some things get better and some things get worse.

>> Okay, so that that's interesting. So,

like sometimes when you're working on a model, it's possible that you think you're making an improvement, then you test it out and it's like, "Oh, wait.

That's not right. I need to go back to the drawing board."

>> That happens every day. And and um even more than that, we'll have a model and we can we can do a test and we can know this new model is better. And there will still always be people who prefer the

old worse model. And so, um and it's because music is not there's no right answer. It's not a problem to solve.

answer. It's not a problem to solve.

>> Yeah. I guess it's perfect, right? You

and I are not going to agree on every song. That's to be expected, you know,

song. That's to be expected, you know, and um you can take that as um a problem or you can take that as a challenge. And

it is a challenge and this is art and there are no right answers. And you can lean into it and you can try to make tools and models that make beautiful music.

>> Yeah. There's this great Brian Eno quote. I don't know if you've ever heard

quote. I don't know if you've ever heard it. I'm going to butcher it right now

it. I'm going to butcher it right now because I don't know it off the top of my head, but it was something about how uh like whenever there's new technology, it doesn't sound perfect at first or it doesn't look perfect at first depending

on whatever it is, but eventually as it becomes perfected, people start to yearn for um kind of like the early messed up

stuff at the beginning. Like it's like I look back at the Lol Yachty cover that was AI generated and it's like when the faces don't look good at all and the hands have like 20 fingers on them and

all that stuff. I'm really curious to see just in the future if people start to uh be interested in the sound of

early AI music or early a or the look of early AI images. We'll we'll see how it develops. But

develops. But >> I mean it Brian said it was probably right. So yeah, let's just wait and

right. So yeah, let's just wait and it'll happen.

>> Yeah, we'll we'll we'll just assume that he's correct on all things. But

>> we we see it actually. We see people um I forget who taught me this, but to how to prompt for like um vinyl imperfections in Sunno.

>> Oh, interesting. So yeah, like the little fuzziness.

>> Exactly. Cuz they you want that you want it to sound like a like a not perfectly kept vinyl.

>> Huh. That's so interesting. Why did

launch without licensing any of the music in the first place? You're saying

that the major labels are very important and yet you didn't license anything in the beginning.

>> Uh I do have a lot of respect for music.

The major labels are very important. Um

but what we did is legal and so that's what we did.

>> Well then why settle if you feel like you could win the lawsuit.

>> I don't think uh of what we did as settlement and like I think about this much more as a partnership about being able to build products that we can't build on our own and being able to develop products that we don't know what

they should look like yet. and to try to do that and push that forward. So, it's

much more long-term. And I think a problem that I see sometimes is there are too many, let's say, exchanges of dollars for IP, which is good, but is

very short-term and there are not enough really long-term thinking about partnerships between music companies, technology companies, artists, producers, like what should the future

of music look like? Um, and I I think not just us, everybody should be thinking about that a little more, especially with how much, let's say, doom and gloom there is about AI in general, not just in music.

>> I know that you watched this episode very recently, but I recently did an interview for this podcast with Michael Nash, the chief digital officer at Universal Music Group, and we were talking a lot about what they're looking

for when they're making partnerships with AI companies. And it was really interesting to hear his insight because I hadn't really gotten to hear that directly from him before. One of the things that he talked about quite a bit

was the idea of a walled garden. So

basically a walled garden would be for those who don't know like a user could use AI tools within this like personal sandbox but you can't download the songs

and take them out and use them on social media or streaming services or whatever.

He said that all the AI companies that they have made partnerships with so far have agreed to a wall garden approach. I

know that so far, you know, you guys don't have a walled garden. Have you

guys ever considered that option? And do

you think that it would be feasible to have with a walled garden?

>> You know, I think this issue is like a little more subtle than just walled garden, not walled garden. And I think it is it's not black and white. It's

like what should stay on platform and what should not stay on platform. And I

think that these like somewhat um black and white views of things lack nuance. They also really prevent a lot

nuance. They also really prevent a lot of innovation. And ultimately I think

of innovation. And ultimately I think users want to do more things with music than they can do right now. And we are in the business of trying to delight users with new things that they can do

with music. And if we don't give people

with music. And if we don't give people new things, um they're not going to get to do new things. They're not going to want to pay more money for these new experiences. and we will not actually be

experiences. and we will not actually be able to move forward, grow the music economy. And I think in general, um, I

economy. And I think in general, um, I understand that music and technology have a checkered past, but too much inhibition of, uh, innovation ultimately

keeps things a lot smaller than they ought to be, you know. Um, so I think a lot about um, gaming. I don't actually play video games, but like in gaming there are so many different things

people can do. There's like these really long games, these really short games, these like very surface level games, these games you play with your friends, these games that you go deep by yourself. There's lots of different

yourself. There's lots of different products out there, and there's lots of different business models out there. And

ultimately that caters to a lot more people in exactly the way that they want. And I think there's a lesson there

want. And I think there's a lesson there to learn from the music industry of we should be trying to cater to people um how they want. And yes, I understand that there's a balance between what consumers want and what artists want,

but there is so much room to do things that obviously everybody wants. And so

that's the vision that we have. That is

what we are focused on.

>> Mhm.

>> Would you ever implement like kind of a closed environment though for Sunno >> completely?

>> Yeah.

>> I I think I think that is way smaller than it needs to be.

>> Yeah.

>> Mhm. And one of the things I've noticed that uh Sunno's really been leaning into recently, I had the chance to go to your offices, meet some of your employees. I

met with um someone who is curating playlists for you guys. Um and it seems like y'all are leaning into that, like the streaming experience, the consumption experience within the Sunno

platform. I thought that was really

platform. I thought that was really interesting. Um I'm wondering what your

interesting. Um I'm wondering what your goals are with kind of the consumption and streaming side of Zuno.

In general, the way I think about this is we want to be building things that have not really been possible before up until like literally today. And so the

hope is and the in strong intention is we're not building a streaming experience that happens to have AI powered music. I don't think the world

powered music. I don't think the world particularly needs that honestly like >> you know there's already infinite music for you to listen to on Spotify. The

world doesn't necessarily need um just a different experience that actually is the same for the end user. And so um our more consumptive experiences, we are much more focused on what can we give

people that has never before been possible. Whether that's in how lean-in

possible. Whether that's in how lean-in versus lean out it is, whether that's the types of personalization and that's not just the personalization of the content. Maybe that's actually the

content. Maybe that's actually the personalization of the experience. There

are consumption experiences, for example, where maybe the intention is not just to have you listen for 6 hours straight while you're writing your next article. Maybe actually the intention

article. Maybe actually the intention for you is to pull you in away from that consumption experience and get you to play with music a little bit, get you to create a little bit. Like that is something that has not been possible up until approximately today. So those are

the types of things that we think about.

>> One of the things that I think a lot of people have disliked about the streaming era of music so far is that a lot of it has trained us to be very lean back with

music. we just put on a a dinner party

music. we just put on a a dinner party playlist and we walk away and we're not thinking about what what comes on. And

yes, that artist makes, you know, a fraction of a penny because we're listening to it. But it it becomes a really passive experience. I do think that it's a a really interesting

argument that I I hear a lot with AI about the fact that it would force people to lean in a little bit more and to think a little bit more heavily about the music that they're making. And I

guess if someone really is not super wellversed in AI music, I I think what I'm trying to get at when I say that is, you know, after you make a song or after you find a song that you love, being

able to tweak it or remix it or customize it. Um, so it'll be

customize it. Um, so it'll be interesting to see.

>> I think it's really exciting. You know,

I think though, back to what I said before, it can be that. It doesn't have to be that. Like these are choices. Is

it is it going to be the same streaming experience, but it happens to be AI powered music, or is it going to be something else that could never have existed before? That's a choice. Like

existed before? That's a choice. Like

that's a choice for the people who built it and for the people who use it. Um,

and so that's what I mean by human agency of like uh and wanting to do things that have never existed before.

And I think that there's something about platforms at true scale like some of the big platforms today that they tend to cater to the

let's say lowest or most passive common denominator which is the dinner party use case that you said and um I think that is also that that is a problem with the current business model. there's one

offering, it will cater to the lowest common denominator. And if there are

common denominator. And if there are multiple offerings, you have the ability to capture people where they want to be captured with music. And there are just so many more possibilities around that.

>> Yeah. And you guys recently launched a feature that I I find to be really interesting. It's um kind of a vertical

interesting. It's um kind of a vertical almost like a Tik Tok like um I don't know, would you call it social media?

What is it called? Hooks. Hooks. Yeah.

um where you encourage people to make videos along with their songs and then from there people can remix them.

>> Exactly.

>> Yeah.

>> So the intention is not to keep you scrolling forever. In fact, the

scrolling forever. In fact, the intention is the opposite. The intention

is to keep you scrolling until you hit something that you really like and then to go do something with it. Um to go remix it, to go listen to the whole song with one click, um to find out a little

bit more about that, something that kind of doesn't exist today.

>> Yeah. I imagine for you, given you just finished up this massive series C funding round, $250 million raised, um that you spend a lot of your time

talking to both the music industry and to the investor worlds, and those are two very different groups of people.

>> Yes, they are.

>> So, I'm wondering what are kind of the differences uh in how they view Sunno?

Uh tell me about kind of those different conversations that you have with those two different groups.

>> You know, it's it's really interesting.

I think um just to cartoonize it, it's like it's like LA versus San Francisco basically, right? I mean it, you know,

basically, right? I mean it, you know, that's that's like a little bit reductive. I think both see the other in

reductive. I think both see the other in some sort of extreme and non-nuanced and negative light. It's just they're both

negative light. It's just they're both wrong honestly, you know, and so it's like, you know, I think about this a lot. Like the tech bros uh think that

lot. Like the tech bros uh think that the music people just don't get technology and they're lites and the music people the tech think the tech bros are just here to disrupt everything

and not care about art and obviously the reality is something in between. I'll

tell you like for me it's actually really eye opening living in either place >> um and uh having a little bit of distance from both of them. both cities

have like so much um day-to-day interruption, let's say, you know, on your favorite social media platform or whatever it is. And it's like incredibly nice to have some distance. Um so yeah,

I think look, I you know, I have a lot of opinions uh of my own. I'm sure

plenty of them are wrong. Um but we try to talk about the company the way we like to talk about the company and not the way we think other people like to talk about the company. Um, ultimately,

like if you're trying to pitch an investor and you're trying to tell them what what you think they want to hear, I I just don't think that's a good idea.

You have to talk about it like the way you think about it and the way you want them to understand it, not not the other way around.

>> Mhm. What do you think some skeptics get wrong about?

>> I think a lot of people think it is just type six words into a text box and out comes a crappy mediocre song and not realizing that there's so much more to it. And you have to show them. And

it. And you have to show them. And

that's why we have writing camps, for example, right? You have to show them

example, right? You have to show them that there's a lot more to it. If you

have three minutes, they're going to see that that one very surface level interaction with music and you're not going to have enough time to pull them in.

>> Mhm. So, you were on a podcast a while back and I've heard that this quote has haunted you. So, I I want to bring it up

haunted you. So, I I want to bring it up and see Br.

Um, you previously said, quote, I think the majority of people don't enjoy the majority of time they spend making music. this has made the rounds on

music. this has made the rounds on social media quite a few times. So, I'm

wondering if you have anything you'd like to clarify or comment on that.

>> Sure. One, I'll say it actually helps not to be on social media um myself.

>> There you go. I see it on social media then.

>> Um I mean, yeah, I I did say that I really wish I had chosen um different words uh there. You know, I think um people who know me know that I obviously enjoy the hell out of making music and I

play music every single day, not just on Zuno, but um instruments. Um, you know, the thing that I was trying to get at is there's a lot of tedium in producing music. And yes, the struggle is an

music. And yes, the struggle is an important part of it, but there is potentially a different struggle that you can have um to hone your skill. You

know, somebody asked me recently like, are people still going to have to spend 10,000 hours learning their craft? And

the answer is 100%. What you do in those 10,000 hours may be very different in a few years from what it is today? But of

course, you're going to have to do that if you want to be the best at what whatever it is that you're trying to be.

Like I said, I wish I had chosen slightly different words, but it's like people who know me know that that's clipped in a slightly interesting way.

>> Another great quote that you had recently was that Sununo is the oympic of music, which you meant to say was that essentially everyone's using it, but no one's talking about it. I I'm

wondering if you could kind of elaborate on that. Um cuz I've heard in my

on that. Um cuz I've heard in my reporting around the music industry, there are a lot of professional songwriters and producers, some who are just not willing to be public that are

using Suno every day. What are you seeing on your side? Um how many people are using Sunno right now in music?

>> First of all, let me say that is not my quote. Oh, was it not?

quote. Oh, was it not?

>> It is not my quote. I'm not smart. No,

no, no. I love that quote. I will I I and I always say a very good songwriter uh put it to me like that. um who may not want to be uh public with that comment.

>> Okay. Wait, to clarify, the songwriter told you and then you repeated it and it was quoted to you.

>> I am not clever enough to come up with with that analogy.

>> Okay.

>> I think it's approximately right. Um

yeah, look, we see this from let's say our VIP program. We have a VIP program which is basically um a lot of you know top professionals who use the product who will help us develop features, who

will, you know, be on the phone with if they have some some problems with with the platform. Um, and that's a big list.

the platform. Um, and that's a big list.

There's names on it that you know. The

amazing thing is one of the ways you can measure um, any product, but a consumer product is retention. It's like how often are people coming back to the product? And you want that to be really

product? And you want that to be really high. And the retention of those DIPs is

high. And the retention of those DIPs is way higher than it is for anyone else.

And it's because they use the product every day in their daily creative workflows. It's a lot of producers and

workflows. It's a lot of producers and songwriters. Yeah. I I don't know the

songwriters. Yeah. I I don't know the exact number offhand, but it's it's thousands. So, who's your target

thousands. So, who's your target audience? Is it the VIP program, your

audience? Is it the VIP program, your your professionals or your aspiring professionals, or is it my mother if she wants to make a novelty song? Like,

yeah, what are we talking about?

>> I think about this as it's obviously everyone. Everyone loves music. Why does

everyone. Everyone loves music. Why does

it have to be that the same platform and tools that can be used as part of making the best music in the world can't also be really fun and engaging and have your

mom discover how fun it is to make music. And you know, we have like a

music. And you know, we have like a microcosm of this with like people buy guitars. People buy guitars because they

guitars. People buy guitars because they like to play guitar. They don't

necessarily think they're going to become famous, but it's fun to play guitar. And maybe you have a favorite

guitar. And maybe you have a favorite artist who has a signature guitar and you buy their signature guitar and you feel a little bit closer to that artist.

And I think there's something amazing and aspirational about like I am using the same tools that the people who make my favorite music use. Um, and not a lot of products have that. I think and it's something that we try to lean into very

hard.

>> Is it really possible to get everyone to make music? Do people really want to?

make music? Do people really want to?

Like, you know, would my mom actually sign up? And if she did, would she

sign up? And if she did, would she retain for very long or would she just make a song and leave?

>> I mean, I think our our usage is showing that a hell of a lot of people, way more than anybody expected, want this. And,

you know, back to the um investors and versus artist, I actually think it's something that both got wrong. You know,

there were a lot of skeptics at the beginning said like why does everybody want to make music uh on the investment side like why do I want to give you money like your audience is going to be very small and I think they ultimately

got a lot of that wrong and artists also saying like why why is everyone going to want to do this build me you know the most powerful tools that are clones of the current tools that will be less fun

and intuitive for everyone else to use and that's also not what we want to do.

>> Okay. So now you're in your series C.

I'm wondering how your conversations changed from the beginning when you were initially trying to fund raise for Sunno versus now because I mean now it feels like I could imagine there's a lot of investors hopping on the bandwagon but

before it it must have been hard um to have those first conversations.

>> Yes, actually at the very beginning um we raised money before we thought this was even possible and so that was a very different conversation.

>> Wait and so how did you do that? Is it

just because of the success of your previous startup that you just kind of >> We had a working um like product that was all around understanding of music and not making of music and it's because

we thought it would be too hard to actually make it but it's easier to um understand it. You can think it's like

understand it. You can think it's like everybody can describe music only some people can make music something like that like a cartoon you can have. Funny

story. Um, we raised our first round of capital right when um, there was a bank called Silicon Valley Bank that everybody in tech used and right when that collapsed and um, that was a

difficult round to raise. I I think it was actually largely because of that and most people didn't know where their money was.

>> That's interesting.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. In the music world, I was just kind of watching that from afar, but yeah, you were in the thick of it.

>> We were we were in the thick of it.

>> Wait. Okay. So, so what was this previous thing before generating music?

It was it was >> same technologies. So okay,

>> it's ages ago think like before chat GPT.

>> Yeah, I I just don't even think I >> we weren't even alive. But um there was still GPT before chat GPT and it was a tool that people could use to take

paragraphs of text and try to understand them better. And um it could be to let's

them better. And um it could be to let's say classify it. So you're going to go through all of the old Billboard archives and you're going to say like is this article about um an artist or a

manager? you know, and you'll build like

manager? you know, and you'll build like a little model that can go through everything and figure out is this is this article about an artist or a manager? And it's like true. Yeah.

manager? And it's like true. Yeah.

Through it and like we were building it's the same technology but when it is less powerful it is only able to understand stuff and you think like we were building these things to understand um is this pop or is this rock like a

little a little more complicated than that of course and um because we thought it would be too hard. thought it would take years before you could use the same technologies to actually make

>> music and we had the right breakthroughs and we were wrong and that's the the like the best being wrong in the world.

>> Well, just like set the scene for me like I I imagine it's like something out of a movie where like the the mad inventor creates the thing that he never thought he could create and it comes to

life. Like when was that moment when you

life. Like when was that moment when you were like, "Oh, we can do this." I think I was sitting uh at my co-founder Gayorg's um kitchen table with next to

him um and you know you like you're doing stuff and you've been working on the same thing for months and nothing works and then and you know and then you like do one more thing and you're like all right maybe this will work

>> and then you're like you click enter and like vaguely passable sound comes out you know and you're like huh okay let's keep going. Okay. So, it wasn't like

keep going. Okay. So, it wasn't like some big climactic, oh my god, we just changed the music industry is >> No, actually the big clim No, not at all. But it like the first things that

all. But it like the first things that came out >> you would be very generous to call music, you know. Um,

>> it organized noise probably.

>> Yeah. Organized organized sounds. Um,

and they were definitely sounds. much

more of an intentional decision was actually to say we're still building the sensemaking thing during the day and we're using these things for fun at night to make

music.

>> What are we doing? Like why why are we not doing the thing that like you know we can't put down and uh to abandon one thing and like that was a much more deliberate um deliberate decision that I

remember much much more vividly. What

was the business plan for the previous idea?

>> Like what were the use cases?

>> Um, lots of people have lots of music and audio and it is um really gnarly to understand and make sense of. And if you

can build people tools to do it, they will want to do it. And at the time, basically the only thing you could do was like very crappy transcription. So

here's like an audio file, could be a song, could be a podcast. Can I like pull the lyrics or the text out? That

was about it. That was about all people could do. And we said, "You can probably

could do. And we said, "You can probably do more." Um, and so we started to do

do more." Um, and so we started to do more and we did. Um, but it wasn't nearly as fun or impactful or it didn't feel nearly as right as what we wanted to do.

>> Yeah. So, when was like the first good song from Sunno?

>> Oh, that's a that's such a subjective question.

>> Yeah. But like was there like a big moment where you're like, "Okay, this isn't this isn't just like a this is fun and it's kind of noisy and whatever.

Yeah, I think it was like >> I think we called it version one and it um it could sing and nobody else um there were other companies and people

out there who could make little loops or notes and nobody could make songs.

>> Yes.

>> And there's something really special about a song. A song is a story. It's

not background music, right? It's and

the whole point is like to make like the best music and to make people able to create the things that are in their hearts. And so like um that was like

hearts. And so like um that was like that was like really really important and so that was V1 that could like really do that and again not good you know but like it but they were songs. I

remember the first time that I tried Sunno. I I was just really struck by

Sunno. I I was just really struck by well the quality of the model, but the fact that it it really did put together lyric generation, voice generation, and

instrumental because I was reporting on the early stages of AI music and it was mostly just kind of crappy instrumentals from a bunch of different companies.

There was no frontr runner. Some of them were better than others. like it just kind of felt like it was more it it was it was very novelty at the time and I just didn't really know when it was going to get to the point where you just

could do all of those different things and put them together within seconds and yeah felt like the moment for me and it >> well thank you for for us too you know I think there's something about early

product development where you you have to make choices of what you're going to try to solve and not solve and um it was very obvious to us that we wanted to make lyrical music or like didn't want

to make just instrumental music um because that is like that's what resonates with people. I think like there's something I think like we evolved to resonate with the human voice sound like uh that seems very plausible

to me but I remember at the beginning we didn't even have control over the genre and so the models would basically infer the genre from the lyrics and so we'd

see people hacking their lyrics and you know putting like yo yo yo at the beginning because they just demanded that it come out as rap you know and and it was like it was like totally like trigger words. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

trigger words. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

And then we figured out how to control the you know it's like so you you build it up step by step.

>> That is really interesting man. I mean

already we have so much music out there.

We have 100,000 songs I think is still the stat. I think they just updated it.

the stat. I think they just updated it.

It might be a little bit more than that but 100,000 songs uploaded to streaming services every day. Increasingly a share of that 100,000 daily are AI generated

songs. I'm wondering how you view AI

songs. I'm wondering how you view AI generated songs on streaming platforms. Do you think that they should live just right alongside fully human generated music? And then of course the gray area

music? And then of course the gray area in between which is most things where you have AI assisted stuff that has human parts, AI parts. I don't know just

in your dream world, how would AI generated AI assisted music be treated uh in the commercial landscape?

>> You know, in my dream world, there aren't two worlds of music. I think

again that's just it doesn't make sense because of all that gray area. Um it's

also just not as good for the end user who doesn't want to be thinking like you know if if you rewind history back in the early days of streaming like you needed to have multiple streaming platforms cuz not all the music was on

one. I don't think we want to live in

one. I don't think we want to live in that world. Maybe we do but I don't I

that world. Maybe we do but I don't I don't particularly want to live in that world and have to be thinking about what's on which platform. I also don't want to be the arbiter of where the line is in that gray area. Like that and

there shouldn't be one entity that is the arbiter of that. Like that's a that's a societal decision and that's a decision that's going to change with the technology. And so I think like that's

technology. And so I think like that's something we have to just acknowledge from the get-go. Um and that's a weird mix of technology providers, music companies, artists, creative government,

you know, like all of these things. It's

like this is a messy problem to solve. I

definitely don't want to be the one to make that decision.

>> Yeah. Uh, and I mean with the kind of consumption streaming service side of Sunno, you're trying to innovate there and make it more interesting as you were talking about earlier. Do you ever see a time when you start allowing just, you

know, all distributors to upload any music that they'd like to similar to what Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon Music allow users to do now? Like could

you see humanmade music on that people are playing with?

>> There is humanmade music on. People are

uploading their own stuff and then they cover it and they play with it. That is

a huge songwriter use case. I take

>> Oh, interesting. Okay.

>> A really um lowfidelity like voice note recording from my phone, not me, but a songwriter who has more talent than I do of uh piano and vocals or guitar and vocals. And you can use Sununo to

vocals. And you can use Sununo to instantly basically reimagine that in any genre you want.

>> Oh, I have tried that.

>> Yeah. And it's awesome.

>> And it's awesome. And you can have that song and you thought it was like a a punk rock song and then it turns out it just worked way better as Afrobeats and like it's now it's not a punk rock song anymore. Sorry. And that's awesome,

anymore. Sorry. And that's awesome, right? Um, so there's already humanmade

right? Um, so there's already humanmade music, but like to answer your question, I think in the way that you are >> describing it, no, >> but in the fullness of time for sure.

And it's because um we want to make these new experiences for um consumers around music that are really engaging, that are really interactive. And

somebody who wants who has music that was made off platform who wants to give the same interactive powers to the people who consume their music um is going to have to upload it to Sununo if they want to have the the the same

experience for their fans. We're really

focused on building things that couldn't exist up until today.

>> A couple companies have started to form their opinions about how they will treat AI music. Band Camp in particular just

AI music. Band Camp in particular just decided to ban fully AI generated and it's like substantially AI generated music which they did not define. I asked

them to but they didn't have a clear answer for me. Um, additionally iHeart Radio has their new guaranteed human program which means on their stations across the country they will not be

programming any AI generated music. I'm

wondering what you think of those stances. It seems like AI music right

stances. It seems like AI music right now is receiving quite a lot of backlash and it's being pushed off to the side. How do you feel about that decision?

>> There's a lot of making policies like you said that um end up not exactly defining where the line is and you know probably some people in my position would hate on that. I think

that's actually the right thing. Like we

don't know where the line is and so we're going to have some ambiguous policy that lets us figure it out as we go. And I think that's fine. Um, some of

go. And I think that's fine. Um, some of it is clearly for publicity reasons and that's also fine. Um, I think at the end of the day, everybody is trying to

figure out what is the right mix of like what do our users want? In the case of all of those platforms, it's the people who pay them money or the people who are listening if the advertisers pay them

money. Um, and what creatives and

money. Um, and what creatives and artists want and um, this is a big messy problem. We're all going to have to

problem. We're all going to have to figure it out together and that's that's like fine. I was looking through the

like fine. I was looking through the Sunno Reddit subreddit.

>> Oh, >> it was fun. I I'd never been there before, but uh someone told me to check it out. So, I was just like seeing what

it out. So, I was just like seeing what users say and what people are interested in on there. And I I believe there there was a post that you guys have a new um

product in beta called sounds. Is that

correct? Yeah. It's um like loops and samples essentially.

>> Sort of. Okay. Um Okay. Yeah. more um

loops and samples has a very particular connotation. It's not exactly that. It's

connotation. It's not exactly that. It's

almost more like sound effects and um because the ability to add these little things into your music and be able to prompt for them. So like as um as a random example, you know, we were like

working with an artist and um we were using Suno Studio and we wanted to um add like a little ear candy to a track and we're like what should it be? And he

was like um I don't know, owls hooting.

And I was like there's no way we know how to do owls hooting. And he's like, "Well, you have to figure out how to do owls hooting because that's what I want." So, it's like stuff like that.

want." So, it's like stuff like that.

>> Interesting. Okay. Cuz I my my question eventually was going to be if you see yourself as like a competitor to like a splice type product or a Beat Stars or something like that.

>> Not exactly. You know, the the intention is to to have a more coherent product, you know, where everything fits together nicely. Um because that's what delights

nicely. Um because that's what delights people.

>> Yeah. And I think for a long time, I think in part because of the majors lawsuit against Sununo and UDIO, those two companies were often put in the same sentence. UDIO is now pivoting its

sentence. UDIO is now pivoting its service to be a very different type of platform than what Zuno is going for.

I'm wondering now, who do you feel is a competitor for Sunno?

>> You know, it's funny. That's a really that's a really common question that investors will ask us.

>> You know, interesting.

>> Maybe you actually should be an investor.

>> You secretly live in Silicon Valley.

>> We'll wrap this up. Yeah. I'm going to go to Silicon Valley. Now,

>> I think about it much more from like we have a vision of the future that we are trying to do. I don't know exactly what other companies have that vision.

Exactly that vision, no one. Um and

we're just going to keep go building going and and building that. And you

know, it's um yes, there are big scary companies with lots of dollars and lots of distribution that could do what we do. Um but they don't. And it's because

do. Um but they don't. And it's because they don't have um I think the same view of what the future could and should be around music. And honestly, the thing

around music. And honestly, the thing that you said earlier of like having to convince investors that music is a big thing and can be much bigger than it is

today um is um a feeling that lots of big tech companies have also. And so

that's our advantage and we're just going to go and build what we want to do.

>> Yeah, I actually am really glad that you brought that up because I tell this to people all the time. It's like it is really interesting that in the music category of AI, it's dominated by startups. It's not dominated by open AI.

startups. It's not dominated by open AI.

like in pretty much every other facet, it's like Google or OpenAI that we're talking about as the front runners here, but in music, we're seeing startups and my my theory has always just been that a

lot of people don't think music is worth it and they think it's too complicated and you know, all that stuff. I I'm

curious, would you guys ever sell to a you know, one of these AI giants like OpenAI or Google? I

Google? I >> I actually have a different explanation for it.

>> Okay. which is um the giants have a few extreme advantages. Dollars in GPUs is

extreme advantages. Dollars in GPUs is one of them, right? And um in the game of we are trying to make general intelligence. Um it turns out that is an

intelligence. Um it turns out that is an extreme advantage. It is like throw more

extreme advantage. It is like throw more compute and more dollars at this problem. Obviously there's a tremendous

problem. Obviously there's a tremendous amount of very difficult research that goes with it. But you can't compete in that domain if you don't have that. And

um you keep making the models bigger, you keep making them more complicated.

That's not music. Music is not a problem to solve that like intelligence has right and wrong answers. Music is art.

It is far messier. And I don't mean the business. I mean like music itself is

business. I mean like music itself is far messier. That is why startups can

far messier. That is why startups can compete there. Like

compete there. Like >> we we will be outscaled by Google seven days of the week on on spending money on on computers and um that's just fine.

Like that's not what's going to make music better.

>> Yeah. But would you ever be interested in selling to a bigger company?

>> Probably not. Uh, you know, I think like again, very common investor question.

Um, so you're really you're really doing this well. Um,

this well. Um, >> that's so funny.

>> I I think about it like this, like there's a future we want to build. Is

there a company that we think would meaningfully accelerate our ability to go do that? Then we could have that discussion. But until that company uh,

discussion. But until that company uh, you know, materializes, I don't really see any interest. H and another thing that I find really interesting about

Sunno is your user base. Like I didn't realize until I saw your investor pitch.

I noticed that Sunno's primary user base are 25 to 34 year old men. Um and

usually when I think of emerging technology, disruptive technology, I think that it's usually going to be a really young demographic that's adopting it in the highest numbers. I'm I'm

curious like what you make of your user demographics. Is that surprising to you

demographics. Is that surprising to you that it's 25 to 34 year old men?

>> Not super surprising. You know, it doesn't skew that male. And the second biggest demo, if you go back to the pitch deck, is uh 18 to 25. So, um it's not like it's not this isn't musically

where it's, you know, 13-year-olds. Um

but these aren't boomers. Um I attribute this to there is I think general apprehension around AI everywhere, not just in music, from younger people.

>> And I don't know exactly where this comes from. um is it like AI is going to

comes from. um is it like AI is going to turn us all into paper clips or or something like that? But I think um that is like my large explanation for why um let's say the 13 to 18 year olds aren't

super into zuno. Again, I think just talking to people I have found is like the best way to to explain it. And it's

like cuz I get so many questions from people who in music who know that I do music uh you know and um the questions are always like yeah like is AI going to end the world? And you know, I happen

not to think it's going to, but like certainly Sununo is not going to turn everybody into paper clips. Like that's

not the domain that we play in. And just

like why don't you try it? And um

everybody wants to try it and most people like it when they try it.

>> I think the thing that a lot of critics within the music industry would probably say is like maybe Sunna wouldn't end the world, but it might end my my career.

like if I'm a production music maker or some other type of kind of professional music making class type. What do you say to those who are talking to you? They're

musicians and they are just genuinely scared.

>> Um I say I understand. Um because

like I said before, technology and music do have a checkered past. It's not all bad, but it's not all good either. And

like I I acknowledge that and I usually encourage people to come to a camp or to try the product. And you actually see that somewhat counterintuitively.

It's not all the artists using Suno.

It's the people who are a little more behind the scenes. It's the songwriters and the producers who you might at first blush think those are the people whose, you know, jobs are going to get disrupted. And it's not. Those are the

disrupted. And it's not. Those are the people who are using it the most. And so

usually when people see that if you're someone who makes production music like you get it and you want to use it and it doesn't have to be I make everything all the time on Suno it is another tool in your arsenal. Um and I think that's like

your arsenal. Um and I think that's like actually somewhat apparent from the product. We are not trying to build

product. We are not trying to build >> um a fullfeatured DAW digital audio workstation.

>> Okay. I actually was going to ask if you see yourself also as maybe a competitor to DAWs.

>> No. Um this is another tool in the arsenal. I think it is an incorrect um

arsenal. I think it is an incorrect um sort of uh fixed pie mentality to think like if one tool is more ascendant another tool is necessarily losing. We

are not trying to take up 100% of your screen real estate or the time that you spend making music. This is another thing. There's very particular workflows

thing. There's very particular workflows that are amazing in Suno that you can't do anywhere else and they're things that like honestly we don't want to build there because they're done really well in other tools and that's just fine.

Mhm. Mhm. And going back to the pitch deck, um it says that like Sunno has a million subscribers, up 300% year-over-year, but approximately 25% of

subscribers remain after 30 days. I'm

wondering if you could just talk about user retention, um subscriber retention, and if you think that, you know, those numbers need to improve in the future and how you would improve them if you could.

>> You may have uh misinterpreted that slide on the pitch deck. So, um, uh, bounded day30 retention is a great, um, uh, metric for evaluating how much your users like your product. And that means

I've used it one day, exactly 30 days later, how likely am I to have used it?

And so, it's actually in excess for subscribers, it's in excess of 25%. That

means that's actually quite high. That's

not any time in between. That's exactly

on the 30th day, a quarter of them have used it again. Um and actually if you look over the course of a week, let's say, you know, it it'll be 75%. And so

amongst our subscribers, um this is the amazing thing that nobody believed was possible. Numbers like that are unheard

possible. Numbers like that are unheard of for tools because people don't use tools every day. People use tools weekly, not daily. Those look more like

consumer social applications. And that's

that is the big leap here. It's cuz it's fun.

>> So we were bragging when we said that.

>> Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that that is interesting though. So I mean do you see

interesting though. So I mean do you see yourself kind of being put into the category of Yeah. more of like a a pastime like a >> social media service? I don't know. I

don't know. Uh like when people are scrolling, do you imagine them making music instead someday? I don't know.

>> Um tell me about that.

>> With your permission, I'll steal that line from you and use your name uh behind it. It's a pastime. Um that's

behind it. It's a pastime. Um that's

exactly what we see. And I

>> I don't know. I think this is like fairly non-conensus. I think we're past

fairly non-conensus. I think we're past peak scrolling. I think people want to

peak scrolling. I think people want to do something else.

>> Yeah, I do think Well, Tik Tok's algorithm has been weird in the past few days. We'll see if they figure out.

days. We'll see if they figure out.

>> Something is going on with Tik Tok more more generally.

>> Oh, yeah. They are going under new leadership, which is going to make some big changes to the platform. But I'm I'm curious to see actually if that leads to any shakeup in the social media space.

It's been such a dominant platform for so long.

>> But there there are other scrolling platforms that have no um shakeups right now. I just think more generally when we

now. I just think more generally when we look back at today um uh in five years we will realize that we are just past peak squalid >> people want something else.

>> I mean I hope so.

>> I hope so too.

>> That would be great because I'm too addicted to it right now personally.

Well actually you're not even on social media.

>> No I um I have Twitter.

>> Um I don't have it on my phone.

>> Okay.

>> I don't have Instagram. I don't have Facebook.

>> Okay. You're calling it Twitter. So are

you like a longtime user?

>> Oh no. I don't have X. No, I I got it >> post it becoming X. It's just culturally it's Twitter in my head.

>> Yeah, same. I I used to love Twitter, but now it's it's kind of all over the place. So, I go on and I'm like, okay,

place. So, I go on and I'm like, okay, interesting. I'm getting all sorts of

interesting. I'm getting all sorts of things hitting me on the timeline, but >> I'm glad to not know that.

>> Yeah. Yeah, it seems like you guys are interested in providing all types of things from music creation to also places where you can consume that music that you make or or your friends music

that you make. You also have a little bit of a social media like service. I

mean, do you guys have any interest in like becoming a record label at some point?

>> No, but like I think about us as trying to build um the music super app >> and that is more of a tech word and in tech in tech people more or less associate that with like let me take a

bunch of things and >> put them together and there are small synergies between these things and so combining them is really good. And so um you know you might take your social media platform and add messaging to it

and add payments to it and etc etc. And that's not how I think about the super app we want to build. We want to build the best version of every part of music that could possibly exist. And so that

is like the creation thing. That was a big hole. Most people couldn't create

big hole. Most people couldn't create music and so we went and we made that.

And the best consumption experience I think is not something that exists today. I don't know exactly what it is,

today. I don't know exactly what it is, but as something that is more engaging than the things that exist today. And so

we we want to go and make that. I think

of a record label as just separate from that. It it is an important, like I said

that. It it is an important, like I said before, people think we think the record labels are going away. That's obviously

not true. Um they are way too culturally important.

>> Um >> it's just it's it's not the thing that is ultimately end userf facing. Um that

uh >> we have opinions on how to make it way way better. Mhm.

way better. Mhm.

>> You know, just as a as a thought experiment, something we we say a lot is like >> it's Grammys week, so it is a weird question to ask, but whatever you're going to do tonight, like sometimes you're going to go home and you're going to watch Natch looks,

>> why are you not going to do music and you're not everybody like you're a music reporter, but like the average person and what is the what is the music that's so good you want to binge watch it at night?

>> Well, the thing about music that's different from film and TV is like it's audio and visual. you're totally locked in when you're watching something unless you got your second screen out which is a problem >> you know um back in the 90s people

watched a lot of music videos. Yeah,

that's true.

>> It can have and there's a difference between um an audiovisisual music experience that is really music forward like a music video and one that it has background music and why aren't people

making more music forward things that are so good that like I think K-pop Demon Hunters is like a moving in this direction a little bit but I think more things like that should exist. Do you

foresee an AI or an AI assisted artist making it onto the hot 100 this year?

Like our main chart?

>> I I mean I hate to answer the question or the question, but what is AI assisted in this case? Because I'm I'm sure that there's already AI assisted music on the on the Hot 100.

>> You think so?

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Okay. Like from like who do you think it would be from? Just from uh just like top producers who just like used it in the studio while they were working with >> artist little bits and pieces, right?

And it'll be like very subtle. It'll be

the artifacted electric piano in the pre chorus.

>> Just that four bars.

>> May come from >> interesting. Do you have like a good AI

>> interesting. Do you have like a good AI detector tool? Like can you tell when

detector tool? Like can you tell when someone does something like that?

>> Really hard when it's when it's like a tiny little bit inside it. Like you have to know where to look.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah, cuz well I was trying to check I I've tried to check a lot of songs because I never want to uh say something used AI if it didn't or vice versa. And um it's really hard when it

versa. And um it's really hard when it gets down to those little granular moments. There was like a rumor going

moments. There was like a rumor going around about like the Playboy Cardi album having a little bit of AI on one of the vocals and I was never able to determine whether or not that was true

because it's just that's like one one tiny bit. Um, so it's going to be

tiny bit. Um, so it's going to be interesting to see also how AI detection changes and improves over time.

>> It's really dependent with how forward people are in like there's one world in which we don't need it to be detected because people are just Yeah, I used a little bit of AI in that vocal.

>> Yeah. So, do you think there is going to come a point pretty soon where people just do not care if it's AI or not?

>> Um, pretty soon, no. I think uh pretty soon a lot of people will not care because it was AI assisted, right? It

wasn't, you know, six words into a text box and out popped a song, right? It was

an artist that you loved and um Yeah.

Like there was some there was some AI in it and you love the song and you're not going to care.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have lots more questions, but we've been talking for an hour, so I will start to wrap this up here with our fun game. We're uh we're actually new and improved game for

season two. This is episode one of

season two. This is episode one of season two. So,

season two. So, >> I'm the first one.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Oh, okay. Let's do it.

>> Yeah, you're the first one. So, we're

now calling it What would you cube? And

basically, I'm going to ask you three prompts. And for those prompts, you just

prompts. And for those prompts, you just pick a song that you feel like fits that.

>> Can I ask you a question first? You call

these prompts? I'm I'm calling them prompts like question questions but they don't >> maybe I've just been reporting on AI too much.

>> Okay, >> that's probably true and that that would be that would be a largely Sunna's fault. I don't give me a lot to talk

fault. I don't give me a lot to talk about.

>> If you spent a day inside the company, you would not hear that word >> really.

>> Yeah, we don't use that word. I feel

like that's um that's a Silicon Valley word.

>> Huh. I do feel these are prompts though.

>> These are prompts in like the the the 10 years ago version of prompts maybe.

>> Okay. Well, then maybe I'm just behind that. That could be it too. Either I'm

that. That could be it too. Either I'm

super Silicon Valley and I need to move there and become an investor or I'm just 10 years behind.

>> I support both of those.

>> Okay, great. Two great outcomes. Okay.

What would you cue to take you back to your childhood? So, song.

your childhood? So, song.

>> A song.

>> Yeah. A song to take you back to your childhood.

>> Uh, we went to a lot of musicals and my parents made us listen to >> um the songs like incessantly before they would take us. So, probably the opening to Limus.

>> Ooh. Okay. I did not expect that. Okay.

What would you cue to represent your favorite era of music?

>> That's like the era that I most like to listen to.

>> Yeah. Like a decade, a time period, a scene.

>> Abby wrote.

>> Okay.

>> The whole album.

>> Whole album.

>> Whole album.

>> You can't narrow it down.

>> No, it's hard to >> Okay.

>> It's hard to.

>> That's fine. Um

>> my Spotify age is 73. I will help myself.

>> Oh, mine is 89.

>> I don't know too many people who are older than I am.

>> Yeah. No, I'm like, what did I listen to? And I think I figured it out. It's

to? And I think I figured it out. It's

Chad Baker.

>> Oh, okay.

>> So, they were just like, "Yeah, she's old. She's old." But it's good to cook,

old. She's old." But it's good to cook, too. So, speaking of passive listening,

too. So, speaking of passive listening, background music, >> but I am listening to it and singing along. So, maybe it is active.

along. So, maybe it is active.

>> It's great.

>> Yeah, it's it's great. Okay. What would

you cue to remember the best concert you ever went to?

>> The best concert I ever went to was a fish show at a very small venue in Massachusetts. Um, but I remember um we

Massachusetts. Um, but I remember um we listened to Oasis definitely maybe on the way home and so I would remember it by putting on that album.

>> That's great. That's great. Are you a jam band guy?

>> Yeah, big big jam.

>> I did not know that. Okay. Well, Mikey

Schulman, thank you so much for coming to On the Record. I appreciate your time.

>> Thanks again to Mikey Schulman, CEO of Suno for joining me on the show today and thanks to you for listening to the first episode of On the Record season 2.

If you like today's show, give us a follow on Instagram, Billboard onrecord, where you can find new clips of this show every single week. We'd also

appreciate it if you could rate our show on your favorite podcast platform, because all of these things help on the record grow bigger and better than ever.

Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peak behind the curtain of the music business. We'll come to you live from

business. We'll come to you live from South by Southwest. We'll see you then.