Universal Music Group partners with NVIDIA AI to pioneer responsible AI music

Universal Music Group (EURONEXT: UMG) has announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to pioneer responsible AI for music discovery, creation, and engagement, leveraging NVIDIA AI infrastructure and UMG’s music catalogue comprising millions of genre and era-spanning tracks.

UMG is collaborating with NVIDIA to enhance the music experience of the billions of music consumers worldwide. NVIDIA and UMG will undertake collaborative research and development to promote shared objectives of advancing human music creation and rightsholder compensation.

The collaboration will explore new avenues to enrich music experiences by utilising AI to elevate discovery, engagement and consumption beyond current constructs of search and personalisation. Further, the companies will pursue new approaches to leverage AI in order to protect artists’ work and ensure proper attribution of music-based content.

NVIDIA and UMG are extending the NVIDIA Music Flamingo model to transform how fans discover music. Music Flamingo sets a new standard in music intelligence by moving beyond surface-level recognition to deliver human-like understanding of songs. Built on NVIDIA’s Audio Flamingo architecture, the model processes full-length tracks, capturing harmony, structure, timbre, lyrics, and cultural context. It uses chain-of-thought reasoning to enable nuanced interpretation of musical elements, from chord progressions to emotional arcs.

These technologies help unlock interactive experiences that allow artists to connect with audiences beyond conventional playlists or search. For artists, Music Flamingo opens new creative possibilities — providing tools to analyse, describe, and share their music. For fans, it powers discovery experiences, surfacing songs not just by genre or tempo, but by emotional narrative and cultural resonance.

To ensure AI-driven music creation tools genuinely empower artists, NVIDIA and UMG will establish a dedicated artist incubator. This incubator brings together artists, songwriters, and producers to co-design and test new AI-powered tools, integrating them into real-world creative workflows. By prioritising hands-on artist involvement, the incubator aims to develop solutions that enhance originality and authenticity.

Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG’s chairman and CEO, said: “We’re excited to establish this ground-breaking strategic relationship which unites the world’s leading technology company with the world’s leading music company in a shared mission to harness revolutionary AI technology to dramatically advance the interests of the creative community and the role of music in global culture. We eagerly embrace the opportunities that AI presents, and the fact that NVIDIA is choosing to take a leadership position in the tech industry in their commitment to responsible AI principles is critically important. We look forward to working closely with NVIDIA to direct AI’s unprecedented transformational potential towards the service of artists and their fans as we work together to set new standards for innovation within the industry, while protecting and respecting copyright and human creativity.”

UMG’s Music & Advanced Machine Learning Lab (MAML) previously trained its models using NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure. The collaboration will employ both companies’ research capabilities, establishing creative laboratories that foster comprehensive input from artists, songwriters, music labels and publishers, in part by leveraging UMG’s studio operations such as Abbey Road Studios in London and Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. In addition, UMG will use NVIDIA AI infrastructure in the development of responsibly trained AI-driven business and creative processes.

Throughout the collaboration, NVIDIA will work with UMG and its artists to obtain feedback on product development that will empower established artists to engage with their fans in deeper, more interactive ways, while also providing emerging artists with unprecedented opportunities to be discovered and connect with new audiences worldwide.

“We’re entering an era where a music catalogue can be explored like an intelligent universe — conversational, contextual, and genuinely interactive,” said Richard Kerris, NVIDIA VP/GM of media. “By extending NVIDIA’s Music Flamingo with UMG’s unmatched catalogue and creative ecosystem, we’re going to change how fans discover, understand, and engage with music on a global scale. And we’ll do it the right way: responsibly, with safeguards that protect artists’ work, ensure attribution, and respect copyright.”