YOSHIKI on AI, Art, and Ethics | Dreamforce 2026

This session is incredibly meaningful to me. So by way of introduction, I'm Paula Goldman. I'm the Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer at Salesforce. And this session is really special to me because, well, number one, you all have a book on your chair called Manage the Machine. It came out today. And it was in part inspired by a conversation with Yoshiki 3 years ago in Tokyo where we started talking about the nature of creativity and AI. And I want to ask you to do me a favor and do my mother a favor and hold up the book for me because I would like to take a photo of you all with the book. If you do not mind, could you please hold up the book? Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. This is a very full circle moment. Okay, so Yoshiki needs really no introduction, but I'm going to give an introduction for Yoshiki anyway because what an incredibly accomplished human being. So, and I also want to say that Yoshiki and I also talked about art and creativity and AI 2 years ago here. At this very stage in Dreamforce. And because AI is moving so fast, it's an incredible opportunity for us to understand where we are and what has stayed the same and what is shifting. So if you don't know Yoshiki, and oh my goodness, the accolades and the descriptions could go on. Yoshiki is a composer, a classically trained pianist, a rock drummer, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, He, of course, is the co-founder and leader of X Japan, the pioneering Japanese rock band that helped define the visual kei movement. He has sold more than 30 million records. He has sold out the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome 18 times, has performed everywhere from Madison Square Garden and Wembley Arena to Carnegie Hall. He is on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people in 2025. And his work most impressively goes even beyond music, right? So this year, Yoshiki became the first Japanese artist to receive the Entertainment Community Fund Medal of Honor in honor of his philanthropy. He also headlined the Global Citizen Live Tokyo, the first ever live music event in Japan to use music in support of global education and health initiatives. And if that was not enough, Somewhere in the middle of all of that, he continued experimenting with what happens when technology can drive another version of Yoshiki. So let's take a look at this video.

So rather than the traditional introduction here, I'm going to leave this up to AI. Ready?

Oh.

Who is the biggest rock star in Japan?

If we're talking sheer legacy and cultural impact, it's probably Yoshiki from X Japan.

It's quite the honor when you're the unanimous answer from AI.

Yeah. Wow.

50 million records sold, and he's here to talk about how he's going to play 2 special nights at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. We welcome this morning Yoshiki.

Yoshiki is so big, he has his own branded Visa card, and he's the first person ever to have a Hello Kitty doll named after him!

He is Michael Jackson, Prince, Liberace, Led Zeppelin, all rolled into one. This Japanese artist is a superstar. And that's why today he joins some of the biggest names in Hollywood history, placing his hands and feet in cement at the Chinese Theatre. He's a composer, a concert pianist, mesmerizing audiences around the world with beauty and elegance. But he's also a heavy metal rock star, creating hard-driving rock and roll songs and then hammering the drums to sold-out arenas. If those guys were born in America, they might be the biggest band He also works in the world of fashion and has his own wine, ultimately using his great entrepreneurial success to help others. Ishiki is the first Japanese artist to be honored in this way.

Thank you for this honor.

Thank you so much. Orange.

Apple.

Yeah, I want to know.

Please welcome the one who bridges Japan and the United States with his music, Yoshiki.

We're on the red carpet with Yoshiki now. I have to ask, being on the Time 100, how does it feel that you're one of the top 100 people right now in the world?

Legendary composer, philanthropist, Yoshiki. Welcome back to Dreamforce, Yoshiki. So I was really, really looking forward to this conversation, really looking forward to catching up after a couple of years. So we sat here 2 years ago. AI Yoshiki was an experiment. And of course, AI has progressed significantly since then. And you've had 2 more years to explore how is it that AI can deepen a relationship between an artist and your fans. And then where is the part where you want the real, actual human Yoshiki to take over? So what are your reflections? What have you learned in the last couple of years?

Okay, first of all, thank you so much for having me. Okay, so yeah, about 3 years ago, I jumped into this technology industry. So I'm glad I did that because, you know, in general, the artistic industry, like our industry, it has been very afraid of, you know, technology, or especially like AI. So instead of just like looking from outside, actually doing it, creating it, can understand even more the depths of, you know, what's going on. So I learned a lot, like how to even create, you know, I was— so basically I created my own AI. purpose was to communicate with my fans. So it's kind of interesting. My fans cannot talk to me directly about my fans, some, you know, what they think or something, but my fans can comfortably talk to my AI.

Yeah.

Anyway, also my AI has been very careful. AI Yoshiki has been We do a lot of data transaction upon their consent.

Okay.

So, you know, am I okay to, you know, get your information or not? If you say no, we don't collect information. So we are kind of creating our own LLM. So let's see, you know, my fans said, hey, Yoshiki, I'm here, right? I think we talked about last year a little bit, you know. So AI Yoshiki knows who you are, right? So in a good way. Anyway, so learning this industry from outside and inside was a very good thing, has been a good thing.

Yeah, so interesting. But, and it's interesting because you were amongst, I think, the first musicians to experiment with this in a fan interaction capacity. But if I understand correctly, you draw a different line with respect to the use of AI in the actual creation of the art itself. Is that true? Has it changed? How do you think about that?

It's a very good question. You know, technology and art, those two Always, there's always a fine line how it can, you know, coexist. Let's see, I mean, AI is like kind of like a technology on steroids right now.

Yeah.

So even piano is a technology. So there's an era before piano, harpsichord, something like that, you know. The piano is actually invention. Recording is also a technology. So without recording, you couldn't listen to all those CDs or streaming or download, you know, those are technology. So technology and arts started coexisting together. They actually was— have been expanding in a good way. So now, now it's AI era, right? How could we coexist? So I think we have to be careful more than ever. So, I'm not pessimistic nor too optimistic either. So, I've been very careful about what I should say as well, you know. But I use— I can look at AI more like a tool.

Yeah.

Let's see. Because I do rock, I'm also a classical composer. I was a musician, pianist. I do a lot of orchestration. So, you can have like a humongous orchestra, like a lot of violins, cello, contrabass, trumpet, flute. Could be thousands of orchestra. They can even multiply. But I think still conductor needs to be a human. also composer. Composer can talk to the arranger, what do you think about this phrase? You know, so I think human needs to be the conductor/composer. Yeah, I can go even deeper than that, but that's kind of like a general idea.

So the— and it's interesting because there's a chapter in the book called Conducting the Orchestra about AI-human teams. It's interesting because I think you're talking about art, but a lot of what you're talking about also applies to how we collaborate with AI in business. And what you seem to be saying is the human needs to be accountable for all of the different pieces that go into the music, and it's the human's vision and their creative instinct, but it's okay to use AI as a tool in that process. Is that— am I getting it right?

So, I read your book, Manage the Machine.

Oh, thank you.

Which is amazing. You know, a lot of answers in it, especially these days, Hugging Face incident and all those, you know, recursive self-improvement, a lot of things happening. There are a lot of answers in it, especially like, I really read it.

Page 12.

No, no, page 18. So, do not overtrust in AI. So, because, you know, we start asking to chatbot or something, you know, then I have a lot of opinion about it. So, then also chatbot has certain bias in it. Right? So because they want me to like you, right? Yeah. So, so, but my point is, whatever the answer you get from chatbot, you have to rethink. Is that, you know, it's not— don't overtrust that. At the same time, you know, do not underestimate either. So it's like there's a very fine line, you know?

Yeah. Do you feel like when AI is used in a creative process that it actually then influences the outcome? Like, do you see AI influencing artists' style?

In some way, it can be inspirational.

Yeah.

But like, you know, art usually is more like something explosive. So like the concept of LLM, right, large language model, it's kind of like averaging out. So more artists use AI, all the songs becoming somehow similar, and then I don't know if I like that, you know.

Yeah.

Again, I'm not saying people who use AI, you know, they use AI for a certain way, but also When AI emerged, you know, for this world past several years, the music industry, the pendulum swung to the AI, right? People started uploading like thousands or hundreds of thousands of songs a day to the streaming platform. Now I feel like, you know, the pendulum is swinging the other way around. It's like, okay, so because, you know, all those generative AI companies started watermarking if you use the AI or not. So also the streaming platform, the same thing. This is AI created.

Yeah.

This is human created. So like, I know this is like organic orange or this is AI orange, something like this. So then people started appreciating more, you know, more appreciative than a few years ago how they care about organic music.

Yeah.

So I start kind of like that, you know. As a creator, I cannot create 100 songs a day, you know. I'm actually infamous. I spend like create one song, spend one year or something. even longer, right?

Wow.

I actually did something better, but, you know, I made a little exaggerated version of it. But even though the same music, you know, music repetitive pattern or other things could be learned by AI, but these every single note or every single sound we are The melody we create has history to it. I went through my mother's death, my father's death. I wrote the melody. My member's death, I wrote the melody. They can create the same melody.

Yeah.

AI can create it, but they didn't— AI didn't lose what I lost. Again, I'm a little, you know, maybe it's not a good example or not, but I have a lot more, how do you say, intense feeling towards creating art.

Yeah.

So again, I'm not saying using AI as a, you know, you can talk to AI like, what do you think about this? But that's one of the opinions. But you should decide what you create.

Right. Yeah. No, I actually think it's a very apt analysis because on the one hand, I think for art or innovation or creativity, I think what we see is that AI expands the canvas just dramatically. It brings in so many options that you can consider. But as you say, it hasn't lived the experience. It hasn't lost— it doesn't have the deep emotions that humans have. And I guess that brings me to the next question, which is, what is it that you think makes art and creative product feel authentic or organic, to use your word? Like, what is it about that that makes it, that distinguishes it?

Well, I say it like, you know, it's kind of also about life too. From A, Point A to B, if you get there at the speed of light. So let's see, your goal is B. You want to get to B, right? Then push the button, you go to B. Wow, I got— I went to— I achieved it.

Yeah.

So how, how, you know, boring is that? Life is all about going ups and downs. like that roller coaster. That's why when you achieve certain goal, you feel happy, you feel like you did something. So, you know, music is kind of same thing. I need to— I put a lot of energy into it to— sorry, what was the question?

So there it was, what makes music or creative work feel organic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, I mean, you can even use AI, but try to talk to them 100 times. I know, I disagree, I agree, I disagree. Yeah. So then, then it might not be the right word, but somehow I suffer to create the music. It's not— of course there's a happy moment So part of the creation, that's also an art.

Yeah.

So, you know, whatever the amazing picture or paint, but there's always a— like, let's say Van Gogh, right? He went through crazy life to create the amazing paint. So when we see that, we see that history of what he went through. the creator. That's really important. I think that kind of analysis may apply to the entire AI industry. So something becoming convenient, is it— does that make you happy? Does that make your life more, you know, important?

Yeah.

What is life? Life needs to have element of, of course, you know, I wish I could have my life was a little more, a little smoother than I suffered a lot. But because of, you know, amazing fans and amazing friends, I'm just still standing right here. But, you know, so, but that's life. So if everything went perfectly smooth, maybe that was boring. So this, especially this AI era, we want to think about, yeah, the convenient, and then you can do a lot of things easily, right? Does that make your life good or not?

Right. And, and actually, does it make you successful at your goal also? It's interesting because I'm just thinking about all these analogies. There's a chapter in the book that's about creativity and innovation and all these innovation teams that found when they just asked AI for ideas, they got sort of the average idea. Or they, you know, lots of things that their competitors could have. But if you then think, well, your business has AI, but so does your competitor and so does your customer. then what actually is gonna make you stand out, it's going to be how you use AI in service of bringing out these human qualities of creativity and innovation and so on. And that brings me to another question for you, which is about artists themselves. And I don't think this question is unique to artists, but obviously there's quite a lot of anxiety about whether AI will in fact replace artists and that it's not— maybe it's not being seen as just a tool, but it's seen as sort of a replacement for the people that are making the work. And I know you have strong opinions about this. What is the future? If you could wave your magic wand and tell us, you know, what is a positive future where AI and artists coexist in a positive way?

I'm trying to find out.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I wish I have a clear, crystal clear answer, but, you know, I You know, I can ask AI, what do you think about this melody? AI will not— won't say this sucks. Can you imagine? But because, because, because I don't— I haven't, I haven't seen any AI, like, I mean, checked any AI, it is against you. So they try to make you somehow happy. Somehow, there's some kind of bias in it. So, but if I'm talking human to human, like, amazing producer, or, what do you think of this melody? So some people may say, this sucks. You know, I may even tell some artists. This kind of conversation is easy, you know. I mean, that also happens a lot in a recording studio. But, you know, try to be nice to each other between human and AI. maybe boring. So we may need a little more to create an art though, you know. I'm not trying to provoke any—

I love it though.

You know, but yeah, but to create an art, we need some intense, you know, collaboration or intense conversation, intense creative crush. Then again, I'm kind of maybe saying the same thing more and more AI be saturating this world, human creation became really important. So yeah, um, okay, I'm talking from my artistic industry standpoint.

Yeah.

But I think that applies to any industry. Yeah, but again, you know, those— let's see, I still write the music score, but these days I can hum and the music score can come. That's great, you know, good for my hands. I have tendonitis. So there's so many convenient things you can use AI or technology.

Yeah.

So then you can concentrate on more creativity.

Got it. And do you think that that has gotten better over the last 2 years as AI has gotten more powerful? Has it made it easier for you or harder for you? to concentrate on creativity?

I wouldn't say so. The music industry is, you know, so was very, very— we went turmoil, right? So because basically at the beginning, especially AI music has been— had been training without any consent. So then now we are starting, even like my distributor asked me, is it okay for us to use your music for training or not? At least we have a choice after all those years, right?

Yeah.

So I wouldn't say I say yes or no, but so that's a music industry thing, you know. Is it okay to train your art. But that can be also, uh, is it okay to retrain, you know, train your article or train your work, you know, or your lifestyle? So there's a certain, you know, issue that people need to deal with. You know, music industry is easier because the melody was the publishing rights, music publishing rights mechanical rights. But we already— we all have our rights.

Yeah.

What we do, right? So our privacy. At the same time, you know, the AI can use for great for all those medical things. There's a fine line. Where do you draw the line? How much privacy we should keep? How much rights that you as a human being you should you know, have, then how much you can give and then contribute to something, create something, you know, beautiful. You know, that's the—

Yeah.

Then I think the world is trying to find the fine line. So definitely we need a guardrail. Um, um, I mean, again, I come from Japan originally but live in America. They travel all over the world. I think it's every industry, music industry said, certain countries said no more AI music, certain countries said still go for it. I think something internationally needs to be— need consent, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

That also applies to outside of the industry, I'm assuming.

Absolutely. And it applies to business as well. I mean, I spend all day talking to our customers and I can tell you they want to know, they want to have control. of what happens to their data in the same way that an artist does. And they want it to be transparent what it will be used for and not used for. So I think what you're talking about broadly applies across the board. And I have always appreciated just how thoughtful you are about finding these nuances and not just saying it's yes or it's no, but I'm going to learn by doing it. I wanted to ask you, given that you've had 2 years of AI Yoshiki, what's it like to meet a digital version of yourself? Was it uncanny? Did it feel like you were meeting you?

I was like, oh, that's how people, you know, like, look at Yoshiki. It's very strange. So I like certain parts of AI Yoshiki. Then to be honest, I don't like certain parts of AI Yoshiki. So I, I, there I was like, okay, that's your AI Yoshiki. I learned from AI Yoshiki, I can improve myself. Yeah, so it's like, uh, you know, it depends on how, how you use AI. So AI can be very inspirational.

Yeah.

Yeah. Then AI Yoshiki's been actually improving We've been improving together. Hopefully, in several months or so, we have AI Yoshiki 3.0 or something like that coming.

Well, I'll be excited to check it out. I can imagine, I have the feeling of watching myself on video and getting like, okay, I don't need to watch that. I can imagine it's the same thing on just multiplied when you're watching a Full-on digital version of yourself.

By the way, sorry, actually, it's going to be announced tonight. I'm going to be performing at New York Central Park.

That's awesome.

Global Citizen Central Park, September 26th. I think it's going to be announced officially 2-3 hours from now. So, not AI. I'm going to go there and then— I'm going to be actually— there's someone called Andres Rain. It's not appropriate to say it or not, but I want a human. I would like you to— if you happen to be in New York area, I would like you to come to Central Park. I think there are about 60,000+ people going to be there. So let's sing together. I'm going to be performing one of my setlists. It's a song called Endless Rain. I'd like to hear other human voice.

Amazing. Well, it's amazing how you've always kept humans and artists at the center of everything you do and how your experimentation, your thoughtfulness actually kind of charts a course forward for us. That is not kind of one extreme or the other, but centering people and using AI as a tool. And I know we're running out of time. I want to leave you with the last word. What's next for you and what do you hope is next for AI?

Maybe 2 things. One, I'd like you to write the second version of it because of what's going on in this world, you know, right this moment. So this is very good. So I hope you read the sequel of this.

Thank you.

2, yeah, I would like to contribute my experience, long experience of being in the industry, how the human-AI can coexist, how it's gonna— what's gonna shape. I would like to contribute my knowledge, experience, and everything to make— I mean, kind of cliché, but to make the world better. So again, I really appreciate everybody who came here.

Thank you so much. We're so grateful for your leadership and vision and your artistry. Can you all join me in thanking Yoshiki for joining us here at re:Inforce today?

Thank you.