I think the point on fading legacy artists and the manufactured pop machine applies just as well to live music, although that definitely doesn't encompass all of live music. As those legacy artists continue to disappear, that's less live music pulling large crowds. As the manufactured pop machine keeps churning out it's product, now with the help of AI to do it more efficiently, even the masses are going to eventually tire of the monotony, and at some point I think it won't pull large crowds. Aside from that, in the scheme of things not many people listen to jazz, outside of musician circles and the minority of music heads. And music at church services isn't driving anyone wild.VitaminD wrote: Mon Feb 09, 2026 11:55 pm You're missing a key aspect -- live performance. That's big. Jazz clubs, bars with rock or country bands, concerts, church services, etc. There is still and likely will continue to be an aspect of live performance that will also have a large portion of non-AI song writing and musicianship. As such, interesting tools will likely still be out there. Probably just in smaller number.
That said, a piano is a piano. A drum kit is a drum kit. These tools are established and matured for a long time. There will still be demand for them.
What is happening here is just like in the job market. The jobs that AI can easily take over will be. The music genres that AI can easily take over will be.
Ambient, Techno, Bubblegum Kawaii 8-bit nintendopop are all heavily reliant on digital pathways with minimally complex patterns (in general). I'm pretty sure even today an AI model could generate hundreds of believable tracks in these type of genres and no one would bat an eye. They're all largely derivative anyways so that is easy work for AI which only does derivative work.
However, Do you really think AI is going to generate something rare like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald's Summertime out of the blue? Hah! AI doesn't understand creativity. It just follows patterns to crank out derivative without any understanding of what is enjoyable or not to a human. Because it isn't human. It has no inspiration. It has no life story or idiosyncrasies. No likes or dislikes. It didn't spend it's early 20s with it's mentor in Chicago, honing it's chops in cutting contests. AI doesn't have a history of difficult life experiences and trauma that it uses as a source for it's artwork. Music isn't an outlet for AI. Because AI doesn't feel. All these things formulate what drives a musician, musically.
AI just takes work that people, who can feel and have lived, created and generate cold calculations off of them.
With that in mind, certain genres will indeed be more affected than others. Music isn't in danger. Just specific genres are. And likely, already recorded songs (by human performers) will likely get more lauded over time. Pre-AI.
I suppose there will always be plugins around to some degree, but I do see AI having a big impact on that in the coming years. I mean, right now any hobbyist musician playing at home can run HeartMuLa on a local machine for free to generate tracks to play along with, just the same as the industry pop machine has already been doing for generating songs and parts with Suno and other AI services. That means that say, a guitar player, who wants to focus on just playing guitar, doesn't need a drum plugin, a piano plugin, etc., doesn't need the relevant audio plugins, and doesn't need to put in the time to create those tracks for unlearned instruments and mixing them while likely doing a worse job than what AI will generate. And hobbyists are a huge segment of the market for plugins.
