Kevin SuraceKevin Surace is an AI pioneer, inventor, author, and human effectiveness authority helping people thrive while AI reshapes work and life.

AI Is Changing Who Wins In Music

2 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, Kevin Surace argues that AI is not destroying music but reshaping which creators succeed. He observes a split in the musician community: one half rejects AI outright, believing their purpose is to manually play every note, while the other half quietly embraces AI as a productivity miracle, enabling demos in hours instead of weeks. Surace contends that the true purpose of a composer—such as writing a Broadway musical—is to get the work produced and performed, not the specific method used to create it. Regardless of AI usage, the resulting music must still be good, entertaining, soulful, interesting, and emotional. He emphasizes that the debate should focus on the quality of the final product, not the tools employed.

Chapters

This is why AI isn't killing music. It's changing who wins. We're seeing this in music today, right? So we've got, you know, half the musician composer community screaming, I will never use AI, it's a terrible thing. You got the other half going, don't tell anyone, this thing's a miracle. I can get a demo in 2 hours. It used to take me 2 weeks. So the problem with the people who are avoiding it and saying, I will never use this over my dead body, is they mistook their sense of purpose. They thought their sense of purpose was literally playing out every note on a keyboard. That wasn't your sense of purpose. Your actual sense of purpose, let's say you were writing musical for Broadway was to get the musical on Broadway. However you get it there, however you write that music, that music has to be good. It has to entertain. It has to have soul. It has to have interest. It has to have emotion. And however much you use or don't use AI, no one should care.