{"id":462218,"date":"2026-03-07T08:15:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/462218\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T08:15:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:15:27","slug":"robert-kyncl-talks-suno-ai-the-value-of-music-and-more-at-morgan-stanley-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/462218\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Kyncl talks Suno, AI, the value of music and more at Morgan Stanley event"},"content":{"rendered":"

MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide<\/a> written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers<\/a> have unlimited access to these articles.<\/p>\n

Warner Music Group<\/a> CEO Robert Kyncl<\/a> used an appearance at Morgan Stanley\u2019s conference this week to make an expansive case for why artificial intelligence represents an opportunity for WMG \u2014 and for the music industry at large.<\/p>\n

The WMG CEO\u2019s remarks came on the heels of a shareholder letter<\/a> in which he argued that AI is music\u2019s \u201cnext growth engine\u201d rather than a threat to rights holders.<\/p>\n

On the broader industry backdrop, Kyncl was bullish about the music industry, calling it \u201chealthy\u201d and \u201ca very attractive category,\u201d pointing to music\u2019s resilience in a world of geopolitical uncertainty and noting that it has not been as well monetized as film and television.<\/p>\n

Here are four things we learned from the conversation\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/a>Credit: PhotoGranary02 \/ Shutterstock.com1. \u2018It\u2019s growing at a rapid pace\u2019: Kyncl makes the case for AI music creation platforms, using Suno\u2019s own numbers<\/p>\n

WMG reached licensing settlements with both Suno and Udio in November 2025, following lawsuits filed by the RIAA<\/a> on behalf of the major labels in June 2024, alleging copyright infringement in the training of their AI models. Suno continues to face legal action from Universal Music Group<\/a> and Sony Music Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At Morgan Stanley, Kyncl used Suno\u2019s metrics (reported by the company itself<\/a> just days before the conference) to make the case that AI music creation platforms represent an incremental revenue opportunity for the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, on Suno according to the last numbers release, you have 2 million subscribers paying $300 million a year, which is $12.50 per month per user, which is more than what people are paying to listen to music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is it\u2019s incremental to what is happening in music today, and it\u2019s growing at a rapid pace. So of course, we embrace it. And of course, we want it to succeed. And we obviously welcome the rest of the industry to come on board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyncl also addressed the structure of WMG\u2019s AI deals, contrasting them with the flat fee arrangements being struck by news publishers. \u201cToday, you see a bunch of news about news organizations doing AI deals, right? And those are done on a flat fee basis. That is not the case with us. With us, it\u2019s precisely the opposite. We\u2019re done all on a variable basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason, he said, is straightforward: \u201cWith news, the news has a shelf life of 24 hours. Our content has shelf life of 100 years \u2014 completely different thing. For us, it\u2019s all about negotiating the outputs and our revenue share on the output so that when our partners are growing, we\u2019re growing. When we\u2019re growing, our artists and shareholders are growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said he expects creation-focused offerings to migrate to the major DSPs in the \u201cnot-too-distant future.\u201d \u201cI would expect \u2014 you should expect \u2014 that those offerings will make its way to the DSPs and help grow the business even past what we\u2019re all projecting today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"US<\/a>Giorgio Trovato via Unsplash2. AI will shift royalties from market share to attribution \u2014 and that favours owners of \u2018familiar and iconic\u2019 content<\/p>\n

Kyncl\u2019s most substantive argument concerned the long-term structural impact of AI on how music royalties are distributed.<\/p>\n

The dominant streaming model today divides royalties proportionally based on each rights holder\u2019s share of total streams. Kyncl argued that AI-driven music creation will displace this over time, replacing it with attribution-based royalty pools \u2014 where value accrues based on which specific works are used to generate AI outputs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the world where most people create \u2014 which is entirely possible \u2014 we believe the most content and most inputs used for that will be familiar iconic content,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in that world, most value will accrue to that content because of attribution rather than market share distribution. It\u2019s rewarding quality, which is not where we\u2019ve been in a market share-based world.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drew on consumer behaviour to support the argument: \u201cWhen you are uploading a video to Instagram<\/a> and you want to attach a song, you start typing a name of a song, a name of an artist that is in your head. You\u2019re not necessarily going through the recommendations of unknown artists. And I think there will be a similar behaviour in terms of creating IP.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Credit: Piotr Swat \/ Shutterstock.com3. Warner is using AI to automate catalog optimisation, revenue forecasting \u2014 and music video quality control<\/p>\n

Kyncl devoted significant time to the internal AI tools WMG is building across its operations, describing catalog management as the primary focus \u2014 natural, he said, given that Warner manages \u201cwell over 1 million songs\u201d on DSPs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is humanly impossible to tend to every single one of those songs and make sure that every single song has all of the metadata fixed correctly, has all the right assets and that it\u2019s optimised for the algorithms of every single platform,\u201d he said. \u201cIn an AI world, that is possible and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Revenue forecasting is another area where WMG has introduced AI alongside its existing finance team. \u201cNow we can start comparing who\u2019s getting closer and who\u2019s right. It just makes us better at managing our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most concrete example Kyncl offered was an automated music video QA tool. \u201cToday, and to this day, we\u2019ve been doing it using people. Now with AI, it\u2019s 1\/10 of the cost, 1\/10 of the time, and it\u2019s super fast and high quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described how the tool, built for catalog, has begun migrating organically to frontline teams \u2014 artists delivering a music video two hours before release can now be accommodated in a way that previously wasn\u2019t feasible.<\/p>\n

4. Kyncl argues there is a \u2018return to scale\u2019 in music \u2014 and that labels are more important, not less<\/p>\n

Running through Kyncl\u2019s remarks was a direct rebuttal of any argument that AI and democratized distribution diminish the role of major labels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is, in general, and this may be a contrarian view \u2014 but I think there\u2019s a return to scale,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need the scale of catalog. You need the scale to recruit people on the technical side. You need the scale to recruit people on the business development side. It is very hard to achieve all of these things within a smaller company.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the value proposition for artists specifically, Kyncl pointed to the discoverability problem in an era of abundant supply. \u201cWe live in a world of unlimited noise and noise that is increasing. So while on the one hand, democratised distribution gives everybody a voice; on the other hand, those voices are being lost in this tremendous noise. If you\u2019re an artist that wants to succeed on a consistent basis, you need a global infrastructure of people and the technology underlying to help you actually achieve that and stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also pushed back against the suggestion that WMG\u2019s efficiency drive and headcount reductions<\/a> had come at the cost of growth. \u201cEverybody was telling me, this is not possible. You\u2019re going to start cutting costs, you\u2019re going to decelerate. And we\u2019ve actually achieved the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyncl attributed that outcome to a series of compounding changes rather than any single factor. \u201cTalent is definitely one. Measurement is another \u2014 we built a lot of different ways to measure our impact and our outcomes, which we didn\u2019t have before. It\u2019s cadence of operations that contributes to that. No silver bullet, but simply said, great management team, combined with a much more strengthened infrastructure and a clear vision for the future on what to do and marching against it as one team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music Business Worldwide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-462218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}