John Legend shared a stage with Universal Music Group's chief digital officer Michael Nash and the heads of Udio, Stability AI, Splice and NVIDIA on July 9. The panel was held at the UN telecoms agency's AI for Good summit in Geneva and looked at how AI is changing music, from creation to discovery and fan engagement.
Every company on the panel has struck an AI partnership with UMG in the past year. Udio settled UMG's copyright suit in October 2025 and is building a licensed platform with the label, due to launch this year. Stability AI and Splice signed tool deals with UMG in late 2025, and NVIDIA followed in January. UMG and Sony are still suing Suno. UMG's other AI partners since 2025 include BandLab, SoundLabs and KLAY Vision.
Legend said many artists already use AI sensibly and that it can offer shortcuts, but he urged musicians to hold on to what makes them distinct. He argued that policy protecting creators is what keeps music a career people can make a living from. He asked that society treat art as something to value, not something disposable. Nash said UMG's approach starts from artists' rights, with commercial deals built on top of that. He said tools do not make exciting work on their own, artists do, and that UMG wants more partners of the same kind.
The tech executives each made their case. Udio's Andrew Sanchez said generative AI is unlike earlier music inventions because it touches creation itself. Splice's Kakul Srivastava said artists whose sounds are used in training get paid. Stability's Prem Akkaraju pointed to open models, licensed data and a team of musicians. NVIDIA's Richard Kerris described AI as an assistant rather than a replacement, provided models have guardrails. He told musicians to play with the tools and break them.
The summit opened with a keynote from ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus, speaking as president of CISAC. He called for all training to be licensed and for creators to get a share of AI subscription revenue, and held up the ABBA Voyage avatar concerts as technology the band chose and is paid for. He said the licensing infrastructure already exists and what is missing is the political will to require it of everyone, not just companies big enough to be sued. CISAC's own research estimates generative AI could take close to a quarter of music creators' income by 2028. In June, creators at CISAC's centenary assembly in Paris signed a declaration calling for human creators to be protected and paid in the AI era.
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