![\"Country](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/country-music-ai-hits.jpg\")
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\t\t\tIllustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins \/ Futurism. Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
For decades, the country music industry has billed itself as the rough-hewn, rural cousin to the effete sounds of the city. That appears to be going out the window, as more and more country producers embrace San Francisco\u2019s AI over Nashville\u2019s homespun troubadours.<\/p>\n
In a detailed reporting on changes in the country music industry, The Verge <\/a>spoke<\/a> to a number of professional song-writers, producers, and artists about the rise of AI in country music. Their responses point to a scene that\u2019s changing fast \u2014 and leaving human artists in the dust.<\/p>\n The songwriter Trannie Anderson, for example, called the tech \u201cubiquitous\u201d throughout Nashville, the epicenter of the country music industry. Anderson, who\u2019s written for artists like Reba McEntire, said everyone\u2019s using it: \u201cfrom entry-level songwriters to the top dogs.\u201d (Sources who talked to The Verge confirmed big wigs like Jelly Roll and Dustin Lynch are being sent song demos with their own voices digitally synthesized.)<\/p>\n Eric Olson, a publisher interviewed by The Verge, encourages country song writers to use AI to come up with song samples, saying it saves tons of time in the work day. \u201cIf I can give Suno the last 20 percent and spend more time with my kids, that\u2019s huge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While AI tools like Suno<\/a> can generate just about everything a music producer needs \u2014 lyrics, backup vocals, melodies \u2014 they\u2019re mainly being used for demo production, according to reporting.<\/p>\n When up-and-coming singer-songwriter Maggie Reaves got a contract from a \u201cmajor artist\u201d with a one-day turnaround, for example, she wrote the song on paper before throwing it into Suno, according to The Verge. Her publisher told her it was \u201cperfect.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is going straight to her,\u201d her publisher said. In the country music scene at least, demo recording<\/a> is an important source of revenue for working musicians. Still, though it\u2019s an integral part of the country music ecosystem, it can be expensive. AI offers a cost efficient alternative. \u201cI immediately saw this [AI] could replace that,\u201d Reaves told The Verge.<\/p>\n Considering country music\u2019s history, it\u2019s a rather fitting turn for the industry. As folk music journalist Kim Ruehl observed<\/a>, contemporary pop-country came to prominence as the commercial arm of American folk music. \u201cThe difference is the involvement of big business in the development of the careers of country stars,\u201d Ruehl wrote<\/a> on the question of country\u2019s folk origins.<\/p>\n That being the case, the drive for efficiency with AI \u2014 cutting production costs and increasing profit \u2014 is best understood as the next logical step for the industry, not a freak departure from the norm.<\/p>\n There are numerous examples of \u201cindustrial advancements\u201d throughout pop-country\u2019s lifespan. Consider the \u201cCountrypolitan era\u201d of the 1960s, in which producer Billy Sherrill<\/a> refined the process of pumping out chart-topping pop ballads, or the \u201cHat Act\u201d era of Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson, defined by thematic conformity<\/a> and the massive consolidation<\/a> of country radio.<\/p>\n One of the prime examples of this \u2014 and arguably commercial country\u2019s point of origin \u2014 was the \u201cNashville sound,\u201d which came to replace bawdry, blue-collar honky tonk<\/a> with mechanically-produced pop hits. Instead of AI, producers in this era turned to \u201cthe A Team,\u201d a stable of reliable session musicians<\/a> in Nashville, to maximize studio time and streamline popular songwriting formulas. Together, the A Team has contributed to tens of thousands of tracks<\/a>, laying the groundwork for country music as a commercial industry.<\/p>\n So, while AI might be taking country music to a dark place, it\u2019s really par for the course for a business constantly striving for mass market appeal above all else. Just ask any honky tonk fan<\/a>.<\/p>\n