Nine Predictions For the Music Industry In 2026; What Meta’s New SAM Audio Release Means for Stem Separation
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What Meta’s New SAM Audio Release Means for Stem Separation
Meta recently introduced SAM Audio, a new AI model for sound segmentation. LALAL.AI, featured in Meta’s official benchmarking, explores what SAM Audio means for professional music stem separation.
Nine Predictions For The Music Industry In 2026
For most of the past decade, debates about technology and music have revolved around regulation, lawsuits, and moral positioning. That framing is no longer sufficient. By 2026, the most consequential shifts in the music industry will not be driven by courts or policy, but by markets responding to new economic realities created by AI.
When Prague connected with Tokyo: The first digital radio broadcast 40 years ago
In November 1985, Czechoslovak Radio made history in global broadcasting. From Prague’s Rudolfinum, a concert by the Symphony Orchestra was transmitted live to Tokyo—for the very first time digitally via satellite. This bold experiment became a milestone in radio broadcasting.
New Ways to discover Music online
In an environment where thousands of tracks are released daily, discovering music online is shaped as much by metadata accuracy, catalog structure, and internal workflows as by editorial playlists or DSP algorithms.
YouTube Axes AI Film Trailer Pages -- Are Music Takedowns Next?
YouTube has reportedly started terminating some of the channels behind unauthorized artificial intelligence film trailers. Is a crackdown on AI music accounts next?
Radio And The Lost Art Of Airchecking
As we know, radio has changed considerably over the past decade or two. New technologies and innovation have replaced old rituals and tasks at hands. One of these is that old standard, the aircheck session, where the PD would sit down with talent and review a show together.
Will Spotify Be the Next Great Dating App?
The music streaming platform just launched a DM feature. Naturally, everyone thinks it’s how they’ll find love.
Forget Hi-Res Audio – this Bluetooth-to-cassette live adapter is lo-res and loving it
Here’s something we (sadly?) won’t see at CES 2026, but that I love: YouTuber Julius Makes has created a device to offer “Bluetooth streaming on real cassette tape”. It’s a one-off bit of fun rather than something you can buy, but for people of a certain era, it might be tempting if were a real product.
Classical Music Is Making a Comeback… Or Did It Ever Leave?
Every few years, headlines resurface claiming that ‘classical music is making a comeback’. But for those within the industry, it never really left. Instead, it’s been quietly evolving by reshaping itself to stay relevant in a fast-evolving musical and digital landscape.
UMG and Splice team on AI-powered music creation tools for artists
the major’s partnership with the music creation platform will provide a pathway for UMG and Splice to “create advanced commercial AI tools that can deliver high fidelity and precise expression of artistic intent”.
SiriusXM, Sierra Announce a Deeper Collaboration with the Launch of Agent Data Platform
SiriusXM will be the first business to adopt Sierra’s groundbreaking new Agent Data Platform — giving Harmony, the service’s AI customer support agent, the memory and context she needs to move from highly effective, one-and-done customer interactions to longer lasting, proactive relationships.
Virgin Music Group gets into game music with Japanese deal
UMG’s Virgin Music Group has made an interesting move in Japan recently. It is getting into the game-music space via a partnership with Japanese company Noisy Cloak.
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