Universal Music partners with ElevenLabs to build a licensed AI music platform

Universal Music Group is building a new AI-powered music platform through a multiyear licensing agreement with ElevenLabs, a company known for AI voice and music generation tools, the label announced Thursday. The platform will let users pull from UMG’s catalog of licensed music to create remixes, mashups, and new versions of existing tracks.

UMG says artists can decide whether their music is included, framing participation as opt-in rather than automatic. The announcement did not specify a launch date, pricing, or which artists have agreed to join.

The deal adds to a fast-growing list of arrangements UMG has struck as record labels look for ways to profit from AI music generation instead of fighting it in court. The company is already developing a separate AI music platform with Udio, and it has licensing agreements with Spotify, Nvidia, and Klay. The moves reflect a broader shift across the industry: this week, Suno released its first AI music model trained on licensed songs from Warner Music Group, BMG, and other partners, after facing copyright lawsuits from major labels over earlier versions of its tool.

What UMG and ElevenLabs say

ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski said in the announcement that combining UMG’s rights management experience with ElevenLabs’ AI models would let artists and songwriters build new experiences for fans while getting paid fairly for it. The companies did not detail how compensation would be calculated or distributed. UMG’s press release also mentioned plans for unspecified additional products and fan experiences in the coming months and years, without offering further detail on what those might involve.

The companies say the new platform will operate separately from ElevenLabs’ existing Music API and its ElevenMusic generator, which are aimed at different use cases. It is not yet clear how the new platform will be distributed, whether it will run as a standalone app or be integrated into other services, or how it will differ technically from the Udio platform UMG is also developing.

Questions that remain open include how many artists opt in, what royalty terms look like, and how this platform will be positioned against Udio, the other AI music venture UMG is building in parallel. Watch for a public launch date and for confirmation of which artists or catalogs are the first to participate, since that will show how much of UMG’s roster is actually willing to let fans remix its music with AI tools.