Hello Reader — Happy Wednesday!

Live webinar: Three music AI trends to watch in 2025

Our next webinar will break down three pivotal music AI trends that will shape the industry in 2025 — much of which is flying under the mainstream radar.

• Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2024
• Time: 1PM–2:30PM EDT
• Location: Online via Zoom

​In this 90-minute session, W&M team members Cherie Hu (Founder), Alexander Flores (CTO), and Yung Spielburg (AI Analyst) will give you a bird's-eye view on the most hyped music-tech story of the year, drawing from our research on 200+ AI startups, 400+ news developments, and thousands of academic papers.

​We'll map out the current state of the music AI market, followed by a comprehensive breakdown of three key trends:

• Synthetic data: ​AI developers are investing in synthetic training data to achieve more with less — a paradigm that could undermine traditional models of data licensing between developers and rights holders.
• Model controllability: ​AI models are advancing to enable more creative customization and agency, and therefore higher quality, in their outputs — raising critical questions about how professional artists will continue to have leverage in an AI-first world.
• AI content and copyright detection: Numerous tools are emerging to detect audio deepfakes, audit training data, and attribute outputs to specific training inputs — establishing a new, if somewhat rocky, foundation for rights management and IP protection with AI tools.

​​We'll leave at least 20 minutes at the end for audience Q&A. By the end, you'll be equipped with the improved technical literacy, commercial context, and strategic mindset needed to maximize your work with AI in the upcoming year.

Click below to reserve your spot. We look forward to seeing you there!

​Can't make it live? Please still RSVP so that you can receive our exclusive recording and recap notes after the fact!

NEW SERIES — Music Data Decoded: How data-led music strategy *actually* works

Last week, we launched Music Data Decoded, a follow-up series to our State of Data in the Music Industry report.

In this members-only series, we dive into the role that data strategy plays across different industry verticals, to uncover more sector-specific insights and keep the conversation going beyond our original report in a more focused, nuanced manner.

Our first installment focuses on distribution and label services, and features conversations with product and data leaders at Downtown, FUGA, TuneCore, and Symphonic Distribution. If you're curious about the new role music distributors play as they expand into hands-on artist and audience development, this piece is for you.

Future installments will cover a wide range of industry verticals, including fan engagement, live events, publishing, artist management, international markets, emerging tech, and more!

Want to dive deeper into how technology will transform the music business?

A Water & Music membership is the best investment you can make to level up on music-tech innovation. Through our unique blend of data-driven research and education, we help our global community of thousands of artists and industry professionals not just stay ahead of the curve, but also translate emerging trends into transformative business opportunities.

Our members get the following perks:

• Full access to our market research on music-tech trends
• Complimentary admission to our monthly webinars
• Private, off-the-record Discord server
• Discounts for our merch and online courses

​Join today — as a free newsletter subscriber, you can use the code FRIENDSOFWM for 15% off. (Valid only for new and reactivated subscriptions.) We'd love to have you! ​