This voice is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any feedback.
As competition from artificial intelligence tools continues to intensify, YouTube reiterates its commitment to helping musicians maximize their in-app presence.
In a letter titled “The Right Side of History” sent to many of YouTube’s music partners, YouTube’s global head of music, Liar Cohen, outlined the platform’s commitment to helping artists maintain control over their music and image and stopping the misuse of AI.
Cohen explains:As the undisputed home of music videos, YouTube has evolved into a comprehensive visual storytelling ecosystem where artists create deep and lasting connections with a global community. With billions of logged-in viewers watching music videos on our platform every month, it’s clear that music videos aren’t just surviving, they’re thriving as a key driver of fan loyalty. ”
Mr. Cohen vowed to support musicians. Expand your in-app fan base by enhancing the promotion of visual elements that align with your music.
Cohen also reiterated YouTube’s commitment to exploring AI as a means to expand engagement, rather than replacing it. YouTube has been exploring various AI music tools, including its Dream Track experiment, which uses AI to allow users to generate audio tracks for clips using samples from popular artists.
Cohen said the goal of such tools is to create a complementary, rather than a replacement, approach to music promotion, while also pointing to recent movie clips generated using AI and the use of Content ID to build enhanced guardrails for similarity detection.
YouTube played a key role in distributing the first mainstream AI song replica, utilizing AI versions of Drake and The Weeknd with Ghostwriter’s song “Heart on My Sleeve,” released in 2023. Since then, YouTube has introduced more systems to limit the distribution of unauthorized deepfakes, as well as established partnership agreements with publishers to help artists protect their work from similar abuse.
And YouTube makes a lot of money for the recording industry. Cohen said the platform paid out more than $8 billion to the music industry from July 2024 to June 2025.
As this is an important vector for music discovery, it is important for YouTube to protect artists and ensure that further integration of AI does not negatively impact the people who facilitate its use.
Cohen said YouTube’s mission in 2026 is to help artists and songwriters harness the power of visual storytelling to reach audiences around the world, while also helping fans “cut through the noise, take us on an immersive journey to find the music that soundtracks our lives, and create deep connections along the way.””
How that meshes with YouTube’s evolving AI push remains to be seen, but at least in theory, YouTube is trying to help protect artists in this changing landscape.
