The latest surge in AI technology is streamlining the tedious tasks that lie beneath the industry's glamor, from simplifying marketing strategies to facilitating instant fan engagement to handling financial intricacies. And as this ecosystem matures, companies are discovering unprecedented methods to not only navigate but thrive within these new norms.
In our previous guest column, we explored how the wave of music tech startups is empowering musicians, artists, and the creative process. Now, we're turning our focus to technologies that are revolutionizing the business side of the industry, including artist services, ticketing, fan engagement and more.
Music marketing has continued to evolve and become increasingly data driven. A natural next step after creation and distribution, marketing involves creating assets for a campaign to effectively engage with the right audience. Traditionally, this was a resource-intensive task, but now, AI-driven startups are providing efficiencies by automating much of this process.
Startups like Symphony and un:hurd now provide automated campaign management services, handling everything from social media ads to DSP and playlist promotion from a single automated hub. Some of these platforms even integrate financial management tools into their offerings.
“Integrating financial management tools into one platform enables better revenue management and planning,” he says Rameen Sattarfounder/CEO of financial management platform BANDS. “Overall, a unified platform simplifies the complexities of managing a music career, enabling musicians to focus more on their creative work and succeed in the industry.”
A hot topic until recently has been superfan monetization, with many startups creating platforms for artists to engage and monetize their fan bases directly. From fan-designed merchandise on Softside to artist-to-fan streaming platform Vault.fm, which recently partnered with James Blake, these platforms provide personalized fan experiences including exclusive content, NFTs, merchandise, early access to tickets and personalized offers.
Drew Thurlow and Luffy Anam Ghazi
Courtesy photo
“The future of fan engagement will be community driven. No two fan communities are alike, so the engagement will be bespoke to each artist,” he says Andy Appleco-founder/CEO of platform superfan Mellomanic. “Artists will each have their own unique culture, but they share one thing in common: Each community will align, organize, and innovate to support the artist's goals.”
Metadata and rights accounting management through the world wide web of streaming services is another area showing innovation. With nearly 220 million tracks now DSP-registered, according to Content ID company Audible Magic, startups are stepping in to provide solutions across the music distribution and monetization chain. New tools are being developed to organize and search catalogs, manage credits and track splits, manage revenue, find unclaimed royalties, and clean up metadata errors.
“While we still have well-publicized challenges around artist pay, there are opportunities for innovation across the value chain, driving growth through improved operations and new models,” he says Gareth Deakin of Sonorous Global Consulting, a London-based consultancy that works with record labels and music creators to make better use of emerging technologies.
Another issue that some AI companies have helped solve is fraud prevention—a major concern stemming from the ease of music distribution and the sheer volume of new music released every day. Startups are helping labels and digital service providers tackle this problem with anti-piracy, content detection and audio fingerprinting technology. Beatdapp, for example, which developed ground-breaking AI technology to spot fake streams, has partnered with Universal Music Group, SoundExchange and Napster. Elsewhere, MatchTune has patented an algorithm that detects AI-generated and manipulated audio, and a few others are developing technology to ensure the ethical use of copyrighted material by connecting rights holders and AI developers for fair compensation. Music recognition technology (MRT), which also uses audio fingerprinting technology, is becoming a prominent way to identify, track and monetize music playbacks across various platforms, including terrestrial and other commercial venues.
In the live music industry, there has been little innovation in ticketing, especially at the club level. However, this is beginning to change as new technologies emerge to automate sales tracking and ticket metrics, helping agents and promoters reduce their manual workload.
RealCount is one such startup that helps artists, labels and promoters make sense of ticketing data. “We see RealCount as a second brain for promoters, agents and venues, automating the tracking of ticket counts and sales data from any point of sale,” he says. Diane Gremorefounder/CEO of the company. Other exciting developments are taking place in the way live events are experienced virtually, with platforms such as Condense delivering immersive 3D content in real time.
Drew Thurlow is the founder of Opening Ceremony Media where he advises music and music technology companies. He was previously senior vice president of A&R at Sony Music and director of artist partnerships and industry relations at Pandora. His first book, on music and artificial intelligence, will be published by Routledge in early 2026.
Rufy Anam Ghazi is a seasoned music professional with over eight years of experience in product development, data analytics, research, business strategy and partnerships. Known for her data-driven decision-making and innovative approach, she has successfully led product development, market analysis and strategic growth initiatives, fostering strong industry relationships.
