5 issues You Have to Know About ElevenLabs, the UMG AI associate with an $11B valuation – and massive ambitions in music.

Common Music Group and AI audio firm ElevenLabs introduced a multi-year licensing settlement final Thursday (September 10).

Below it, ElevenLabs will construct a fan platform for remixes, mashups, and “new observe interpretations,” saved separate from its present ElevenMusic app and Music API.

It’s ElevenLabs‘ first cope with a significant label, in accordance with the 2 corporations.

ElevenLabs was valued at USD $11 billion in February. That’s round three-quarters of Warner Music Group‘s public market cap at the beginning of September.

Listed below are 5 issues to learn about UMG‘s AI technique.

1. Fan modification is widespread, and UMG is now licensing it

Content material identification agency Pex estimated in a 2024 research that 38.03% of songs it recognized on TikTok throughout 2023 had been speed- or pitch-modified, up from 24.55% a 12 months earlier.

That evaluation drew on round 100 million tracks. Lower than 1% of recognized uploads throughout the platforms Pex analyzed flagged the modification within the title.

“Rising in recognition, modified audio remixes usually divert royalty funds away from rightsholders and into the arms of different creators,” Pex stated within the report.

Altered audio evades easy copyright detection on TikTok.

Pex measured music on TikTok as a complete, not UMG‘s share of it. How a lot modified audio is copyrighted, and the way a lot belongs to UMG, has not been publicly established.

UMG‘s response is just not doubtful: it has spent this 12 months licensing that habits throughout three offers.

2. Common has signed three fan-creation offers in below 4 months

In Could, Common turned the primary music firm to license Spotify‘s forthcoming AI covers and remixes device, which is able to launch as a paid Premium add-on.

In August, it signed a licensing partnership with Hook for fan creations on social media. Then got here ElevenLabs.

All three are opt-in for UMG artists, and all share income.

“Probably the most thrilling potentialities for AI and music are people who put artists, songwriters, and followers on the heart,” stated Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of UMG, of the ElevenLabs deal. “UMG and ElevenLabs are aligned that accountable AI can encourage discovery, deepen engagement between artists and followers, and unlock new income alternatives for the artistic group.

“ElevenLabs‘ management in AI audio brings a brand new dimension to our rising ecosystem of companions dedicated to increasing what’s creatively and commercially attainable for human artistry.”

3. Probably the most revealing of the three isn’t a music generator

Hook doesn’t create new tracks, in accordance with the 2 firms.

As a substitute, Hook provides instruments for followers to remix, clip, and add results to official recordings, every licensed, attributed, and tracked. UMG artists and rightsholders determine which songs can be found.

“We imagine the largest shopper use case for music creation isn’t making unique songs that compete with artists,” stated Gaurav Sharma, Founder and CEO of Hook. “It’s about expressing your self via the artists and songs you’re keen on whereas taking part within the communities and tradition they encourage.

“We spent the previous two years working with UMG‘s unimaginable labels and artists to determine tips on how to make that attainable in a method that empowers artists and rightsholders.”

Hook‘s backers embody Waverley Capital, co-founded by Edgar Bronfman Jr., who the businesses be aware has led two of the world’s largest music firms.

4. UMG’s AI companions at the moment are billion-dollar companies

The $11 billion valuation got here in a $500 million Collection D led by Sequoia Capital.

For scale: Warner Music Group‘s market cap stood at $14.6 billion on the Nasdaq shut on September 1, whereas MBW places the enterprise worth of the merged BMG and Harmony at round $15 billion.

That isn’t a like-for-like comparability. ElevenLabs‘ February post-money sits towards a September public market cap, and WMG‘s debt lifts its personal enterprise worth to about $19 billion.

Suno, which Common remains to be suing, reached $5.4 billion in June by way of its personal $400 million Collection D.

ElevenLabs faces claims of its personal, settling a Delaware voice-cloning go well with in November 2025.

An Illinois class motion filed on Could 11, one in all a number of naming tech firms, alleges it extracted biometric voiceprints with out consent and stays reside.

5. UMG’s AI technique runs from litigation to fairness

UMG‘s AI offers cut up between fan-facing merchandise {and professional} instruments.

Common allied with Stability AI in October 2025 to co-develop music creation instruments, and Stability‘s personal Secure Audio 3.0 now reaches producers by way of a digital audio workstation plug-in.

Its 2024 SoundLabs partnership works the identical method, giving artists MicDrop, an AI vocal plug-in that builds voice fashions from an artist’s personal voice knowledge, with the artist retaining possession.

The ElevenLabs deal spans the 2, overlaying the fan platform and merchandise for artists and songwriters.

Launching Secure Audio 3.0 in Could, Stability set out the business logic for licensing in any respect: “Artist-centric AI will solely win if the product expertise on a licensed platform is best than the expertise on an unlicensed platform.”

Beneath sits the authorized layer. UMG was a plaintiff within the RIAA-coordinated fits towards Suno and Udio in June 2024, and its publishing arm was amongst people who sued Anthropic over tune lyrics in 2023.

It settled with Udio in October 2025, taking a compensatory fee plus new licenses, and agreeing to collaborate on a subscription platform the place customers can customise, stream, and share music in what the 2 firms referred to as a “licensed and guarded setting.”

Then got here possession. In August, Common joined Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group in a $76 million Collection B for Stability AI.

No equal stake in ElevenLabs has been disclosed, nor have monetary phrases or a launch date.

Then, patents. UMG‘s July 2025 Liquidax Capital partnership produced Music IP Holdings, which in August unveiled greater than 24 AI music patents, with one other 50 pending.

Its first two licensees are GRAI and Udio – the corporate UMG sued in 2024.

Individually, Common has struck AI agreements with attribution firm ProRata.ai and KLAY Imaginative and prescient, the latter additionally licensed by Sony and Warner final November.

Not each AI platform has been embraced.

UMG Recordings, Capitol Information, and Sony Music Leisure stay plaintiffs towards Suno, which admitted in a September 1 submitting that it obtained YouTube audio for coaching whereas sustaining “truthful use”.

Truth discovery closes on September 30.