AI music generation platform Suno has 2 million paid subscribers, the company’s CEO Mikey Shulman announced on Thursday, a significant milestone reflecting the continued growth of AI music.
Shulman, who also said Suno had surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue, said the company’s growth reflects a consumer class tired of algorithmically curated, churned out content, and he argued that Suno is offering an alternative.
“Endless scrolling and passive consumption have flattened culture and reduced people’s taste to a homogeneous, lowest common denominator,” Shulman wrote. “People yearn for more, and the future of consumer entertainment is creative. Suno lets everyone actively participate in music culture creation, bringing to life the music that’s inside millions of people.”
Suno’s rise hasn’t come without major controversy, as the company has been accused of massive copyright infringement from the major record labels over the training of its models, while a sizable swath of music creators still find the notion of AI music creators pointless or a threat to actual musicians. Warner Music Group settled late last year, though UMG and Sony are still suing. Earlier this week, several prominent music advocacy groups including the Music Artists Coalition and the Artist Rights Alliance penned a letter titled “Say No To Suno,” comparing the company to the thieves who stole jewels from the Louvre last year.
“The hijacking of the world’s entire treasure-trove of music floods platforms with AI slop and dilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists from whose music this slop is derived,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, AI music has also proven to be an easy tool to exacerbate streaming fraud, giving bad actors the ability to create thousands of songs to try and game the streaming system. French streaming service Deezer recently reported it’s seeing about 60,000 AI songs uploaded onto its platform every day, further stating that as much as 85 percent of the streams on AI songs on the platform are fraudulent depending on the month.
As THR first reported in January, Apple Music doubled its penalties for those caught engaging in streaming fraud, with executive Oliver Schusser calling AI music’s streaming manipulation potential a factor in that decision.
Despite the concerns, Suno is becoming a more common tool among professional songwriters and producers to assist in creating songs and demos, growing more present in songwriter sessions across the industry. Suno continues to look to forge a path toward as a more mainstream company in the music industry ecosystem as well, bringing in music industry veterans to help run the company. Suno hired record executive Paul Sinclair last July to serve as chief music officer, and earlier this week, the company announced it hired former Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota as chief commercial officer.
“I have deep respect for music and the role it plays in our lives,” Sirota said in a statement of his hiring. “What excites me about Suno is the opportunity to shape a future where music becomes more interactive and integrated into people’s daily lives.”
