Singapore-based startup founder Anand Roy believes generative AI can help fix ailing music industry

Roy launched Wubble with his co-founder, Shaad Sufi, in 2024, in a small office in Singapore’s central business district. Since then, his platform has generated tracks for global giants like Microsoft, HPL’Oreal and NBCUniversal. They are even used in Taipei Metrowhere AI-generated melodies soothe busy commuters.

Generative AI is a controversial topic in the creative industry: artists, musicians and other content creators fear that companies will train AI on copyrighted materials and then ultimately automate the need for human creators.

Roy, however, thinks Wubble is a way to fix an already broken music industry. Artists receive micropayments on streaming sites like Spotifywhich only works for the most famous artists.

Roy spent nearly two decades Disneywhere he oversaw the operations of its networks and studios in major cities like Tokyo, Mumbai and Los Angeles. He said his experience leading the Disney Music Group opened his eyes to the tedious process of music licensing.

“Many licensing deals have not come to fruition because of the amount of paperwork, the amount of red tape and the cost, complexity and complexity of the whole process,” he says. Yet incumbent music companies “aren’t very motivated to streamline processes.”

Wubble is trying something different, collaborating directly with musicians and paying them for the raw material used to train Wubble’s AI. “If we’re studying Latin hip hop, we’ll go to a recording studio in Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro and tell them we need ten hours of Latin music,” says Roy. Wubble then negotiates a deal and offers a one-time payment for its work, at rates that Roy says are more competitive than other companies offering music streaming services.

He admits, however, that a one-time payment is not a perfect solution and adds that he is currently investigating how technologies such as blockchain can discover new ways to compensate musicians for their help in training Wubble’s AI models.

David Gunkel, who teaches communications at Northern Illinois University in Chicago, thinks training AI from artist-commissioned material is a smarter business move than simply scouring the web for copyrighted content.

Production companies like Disney, Universal and Warner Bros., for example, are suing AI companies like Midjourney and Minimax for copyright infringement, arguing that users can easily generate images and videos of copyrighted characters like Star Wars’It’s Darth Vader.

“If you organize your data sets and pay and give credit to the artists used to train your model, you won’t end up in a lawsuit,” he explains. “It’s a better business practice, just in terms of long-term viability as a business player.”

Speech synthesis generation

Wubble currently only offers instrumental music and audio effects, but Roy thinks vocals are the next step. By the end of January, Roy says its platform will offer AI-generated voiceovers created from written scripts, to cater to customers who need narrative audio tracks. “So a company’s entire audio content workflow can be hosted on Wubble,” he proudly concludes.

AI music startups are popping up all over the world, hoping to use this powerful new technology to make the process of creating tracks and songs easier. Some, like Suno, allow you to generate complete songs, while others, like Moises, offer tools for artists.

Also in Asia, Korean AI startup Supertone offers voice synthesis and cloning, using samples to generate new vocal tracks. The startup, founded by Kyogu Lee, was acquired by HYBE, the entertainment company behind K-pop sensation BTS, and now operates as its subsidiary. Supertone even launched an entirely virtual K-pop girl group, SYNDI8, in 2024.

At the Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore event last year, Lee said he views music artists as “co-creators”, not only in terms of licensing their voices, but also asking for their help in refining the technology.

AI will “democratize the creative process, so that every creator or artist can experiment with this new technology to explore and experiment with new ideas,” he told the audience.

Wubble’s Roy also sees AI as a way to make it easier for more people to get involved in music creation.

“Creating music has always been a privilege. It has been the domain of those who have the time and resources to learn an instrument,” he says. “We believe every human should be able to create – and AI now makes it possible. »