Last December, a K-pop trio named GLXE (pronounced “galaxy”) debuted without any idol marketing characteristics. Gone are the lavish photoshoots and tailored teasers, just three male singers appearing on TikTok with epic musical builds and cinematic punch.
It’s immediately obvious that GLXE is a generative AI, albeit an impressively rendered one. But it took longer to confirm that their voices and songs were also fully AI and created on Suno, a generative music platform with 2 million paid subscribers. Suno, trained on millions of songs and able to spit out complete tracks via a few text prompts, is currently embroiled in a multi-million dollar lawsuit with the world’s biggest music label over copyright infringement.
Still, GLXE is thoroughly pursuing K-pop strategies, including fandom names (stars), dance challenges, several albums in quick succession, listening parties, and livestreams. Their fan base is small but growing, and they are oblivious to the growing criticism of AI in K-pop. “Thank you for giving us three amazing people with the most beautiful emotional voices,” one fan wrote on a TikTok featuring silver-gray haired virtual singer Manila. “Thank you for creating a song that speaks so much and a melody that takes me to dreams.”
However, opposition to AI is growing among the broader K-pop fanbase. The technology first became part of the K-pop lexicon through groups like aespa, which debuted in 2020. (human-designed) virtual avatar (also known as its AI counterpart), and Maeve:used AI to communicate in multiple languages. However, with the arrival of Supertone’s short-lived AI girl group Syndi8 in 2024 and the rise of AI idol wannabes like GLXE this year, while these acts were once symbols of advanced creativity, “AI” Increasingly used as an abbreviation among fans of LLM and generative AI, it has become a symbol of a world on fire, the late stages of capitalism, the climate crisis, and the end of creativity..
“that Hyd, who is one-fifth of the popular fan account ENHYPEN ASIA, told Dazed: “As fans, we’re not just consuming a finished song or performance, we’re witnessing years of training, discipline and fatigue. That’s why AI raises serious concerns about authorship and authenticity.”
K-pop Technology has always gone hand in hand. There is directly The rise of K-pop in the West correlates with the ubiquitous adoption of social media, digital music platforms, and live streaming in the 2010s, and the industry quickly jumped on NFTs and blockchain in 2022. In 2023, HYBE chairman Bang Si-hook, one of the most influential people in the K-pop world, told Billboard:He has long had doubts about the continued existence of humans as creators and producers of music. ”
Since then, South Korea, whose modern economic success is intrinsically tied to technology, has become obsessed with generative AI. That was the case last year of world’s largest consumer We will increase the number of AI slop videos, and in January 2026, AI basic law It was passed to curb abuse and protect consumers. in 2025 Korean survey70% of people believed that AI will have a positive impact on society. Therefore, it is not surprising that K-Pop would Industry executives appear to share this view.
Famous creators like video director Lima Yun and former CEO and creative director of NewJeans Min Hee Jinhas publicly embraced AI. JYP subsidiary Blue Garage claims to be “creating new types of IP using AI technology”, co-CEO of SM Entertainment daniel chan announced plans to use AI within its A&R system, and last September the label We have released a fully AI-generated video for aespa’s “.Richman (Yellow Crow Remix)”. Two months later, in December 2025, Galaxy Corporation CEO Choi Yong-ho said that at least the generation AI in K-POP music videos is now new normal: “With the exception of lead singles, most music videos will be created by artificial intelligence. Costs will come down and efficiency will go up.”
But for many K-pop fans, the problem isn’t just that generative AI is being used, but that companies are using it with little transparency. Dr Sarah Keith, a senior lecturer in music and media at Sydney’s Macquarie University and who has written extensively about fandom, points out: Reddit post A buzz within the K-Pop community about an AI video effects artist who claims to have worked on countless K-Pop videos where the use of AI is not disclosed. “K-pop fans want artists not to be exploited, so when they see AI being used, it’s seen as a sign that management is cutting corners or underinvesting,” she explains of her outrage over the post. “Why couldn’t management just pay a little more to get something that doesn’t look like AI slop? It comes down to a question of humanism and authenticity, but also, ‘Don’t lie to us, the fans. Stop acting like you’re invested in this photoshoot, when in reality it’s mostly generated by AI.'”
The AI artist Dr. Keith is referring to is Oh Jae-won. He founded his own AI-based VFX studio called Oloid in 2025. However, he does not believe that AI will replace creativity, but rather just another tool in an artist’s arsenal. “I think I understand the concerns fans have,” he told Dazed via email. “While the general perception is that AI is being used as a low-cost alternative, visuals with a specific AI-driven aesthetic are often desired. There is also a misconception that AI VFX will always be cheaper than traditional 3D VFX, when in reality, aligning AI-generated images with real footage can be technically demanding and time-consuming. Rather than completely removing the need for creatives, AI will change the work of creatives.”
Brian Jenkins, former vice president of Asia Pacific business development at Warner Chappell Music, extends this to the use of AI in music production itself. “The idea is that AI fits in the same world as Pro Logic, Pro Tools, and all the creation tools that exist to help songwriters develop and create new music,” he tells Dazed. “We’re still figuring it out. Every label is looking at AI and trying to figure out how to use it in different ways. AI music, AI idols, they’re becoming their own genre, and there are people who like those idols.”
But for Dr. Keith, this usage raises some big moral questions. “Do artists need to disclose if they want an AI to fine-tune their instruments?” she asks. “To complicate things further, services like Suno and Udio have their own digital audio workstations, so they can create songs from start to finish, and they can be partly AI and partly human-generated; [that ratio] It could be 99:1 or 1:99. What is AI and what is not will only become more blurred. ” Currently, generative AI music cannot secure publishing or performance rights, but Jenkins warns that this is “a battle that will happen soon.”
“The threat is K-POP without South Korea. Will the future of K-POP AI-generated idol groups be Chinese or Russian creators?”
– Dr Sarah Keith, Senior Lecturer in Music and Media, Macquarie University, Sydney
Dr. Keith also added that there are larger cultural issues at play. “The threat is K-pop without Korea,” she says. “K-POP Will the future of AI-generated idol groups be based on Chinese or Russian creators? That would be a major headache for the South Korean government, which has invested heavily in cultivating K-pop as the basis of South Korea’s public image and economy. So K-Pop will have a fair amount of interest in maintaining the human-Korean connection. In essence, South Korea may experiment with generative AI, but not enough to actually dilute the overall market.”
But Orion, the founder of AI K-pop group GLXE, is largely unfazed by these thorny moral issues, and insists that neither are most of his fans. “There are people who will be anti-AI until the day they die,” he tells Dazed. “Some of them say, ‘I wish it wasn’t AI, but I love music,’ but 90% say, ‘I don’t care that it’s AI, I just love it,’ or I like it even more because it’s AI and not being manipulated or used by a label.”
He has grown accustomed to his work being described as “AI slacker.” “Someone called me ‘lazy’ and I thought that was very funny.” But critics also argue that critics underestimate how much energy he put into the GLXE project. “Yes, AI makes everything easy and possible, but you need someone to manage it, to oversee it, to curate it. You have to have a creative vision of what you want to achieve. You can’t ask AI to give you a sexy man who does the Blackpink dance. It just does it for you. That’s not how it works.”
“Someone called me ‘sloppy’ and I thought that was very funny.”
– Orion, creator of AI K-POP artist GLXE
For Orion, AI software like Veo3 and Suno is a democratizing tool, allowing it to enter an industry that would otherwise be nearly impossible to break through. “I tried to contact the producers of my favorite K-pop songs and said, ‘How do I start? I have an idea for a group,’ but they didn’t reply. So I decided to make it happen myself,” he explains of the project’s idea. “I write lyrics. I don’t pretend to be a musician, but I have these ‘advanced samples.’ [Orion’s way of referring to songs made in Suno] What I’ve been working on. My dream is to not make GLXE AI. ”
Orion and his online friends may not be threatening the multi-billion dollar idol industry right now, but it would be remiss not to think of them as a warning shot over the railing. Like it or not, the role of AI in K-Pop music is rapidly becoming inevitable, and fans, artists, and labels alike must decide what kind of future they want to invest in.
For the rest of the ENHYPEN ASIA fan account, the answer is simple. “Innovation itself is not the enemy, but the future of K-pop depends on preserving humanity,” emphasizes group member Mitch. “Without that, the genre risks becoming technically perfect but emotionally distant.” Their fellow moderator Cha agrees:It’s about the choices idols make, and the moments when their individuality and creativity shine. This is what makes their works feel lively and irreplaceable. Technology should support their artistry, not cover it up, because the core of their music and performance comes from them, and that’s what continues to captivate and inspire fans. ”
The future of K-pop depends on preserving its humanity. Without it, the genre risks becoming technically perfect but emotionally distant.
– Mitch, ENHYPEN ASIA
As K-Pop companies continue to integrate AI in one form or another, we must remember that necessity does not necessarily mean acceptance. If fandoms don’t want generative AI in their idols’ content, whether it’s ChatGPT for lyrics, Suno for music, or Nano Banana for videos, fandoms need to make that clear beyond venting their anger on social platforms.
K-Pop machines can break down just like any other machine. According to Brian Jenkins, even the seemingly indomitable Big Four labels (YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, HYBE), which are empty in the K-pop world, will never fail if the fandom closes its eyes and wallets. “That’s what happened to all of them. They had a lot of success, but they also had a fair number of failures. If the fans don’t like the AI and don’t engage with it, it’s not going anywhere,” Jenkins continues. “K-Pop puts out a ton of music every year, and while only a small portion of it is successful, the majority that aren’t are because fans decide they don’t like the group, whether it’s the music, the looks, or whatever. AI will be judged with the same scrutiny as everything else in K-Pop.”
