Music
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YouTube has reiterated its commitment to helping musicians maximize their presence in the app, as competition from artificial intelligence tools continues to rise.
In a letter titled “The right side of History,” which was sent to YouTube’s many music partners, YouTube’s global head of music Lyor Cohen outlined the platform’s commitment to helping artists maintain control over their music and image, and to push back against AI misuse.
As explained by Cohen: “As the undisputed home of the music video, YouTube has evolved into a comprehensive visual storytelling ecosystem where artists build deep, lasting connections with their global community. With billions of logged-in viewers watching music videos on our platform each month, it’s clear that the music video isn’t just surviving, it’s thriving as a primary driver of fan loyalty.”
Cohen pledged to help musicians grow their fanbases in the app, through enhanced promotion of the visual elements that go along with their music.
Cohen also reiterated YouTube’s commitment to exploring AI as a means for expanded engagement, not replacement. YouTube has been exploring various AI music tools, including its Dream Track experiment, which enables users to use AI to generate audio tracks for their clips, using samples from popular artists.
Cohen said that the aim of such tools is to build a complementary music promotion approach, not a replacive one, while also pointing to recent film clips that were generated using AI, as well as the use of Content ID to build enhanced guardrails for likeness detection.
YouTube played a key role in the distribution of one of the first mainstream AI song replicas, with Ghostwriter’s track “Heart on My Sleeve,” released in 2023, utilizing AI versions of Drake and The Weeknd. Since then, YouTube has put more systems in place to limit the distribution of unapproved deepfakes, while it’s also established partnership deals with publishers to ensure that artists can protect their work from similar unauthorized use.
And YouTube is generating a lot of cash for the recording industry. According to Cohen, the platform paid out over $8 billion to the music industry between July 2024 and June 2025.
It’s a key vector for music discovery, and as such, it’s important for YouTube to also protect artists, and ensure that its own push to integrate AI doesn’t end up hurting those that drive its usage.
Cohen said that YouTube’s mission for 2026 is to help artists and songwriters utilize the power of visual storytelling to build their global audiences, while at the same time helping fans to “cut through the noise and take them on an immersive journey to find the music that soundtracks their life, creating connections that run deep along the way.”
How that will mesh with YouTube’s evolving AI push remains to be seen, but at least in theory, YouTube is looking to help protect artists amid this changing landscape.