“Everybody should be selling or licensing their voice to these companies, otherwise they’re just going to take it anyway”: Eurythmics' Dave Stewart on what AI means for the future of the music industry

Eurythmics' Dave Stewart believes artists need to lean into AI and sell their voices to secure their future - or risk losing control of their intellectual property by force.

Last week, Stewart launched Rare, a new entity created in conjunction with entrepreneurs Dom Joseph and Rich Britton to provide financial backing to creatives who don't want to trade the rights to their work for funding.

Speaking with The Guardian at the launch event, Stewart called AI an "unstoppable force" the industry will need to learn to embrace, stating that today's systems place artists "right at the bottom", but that emerging technologies could offer a chance to redress the balance.

“There’s going to be a disintegration of giant corporations controlling their artists", says Stewart. “Everybody should be selling or licensing their voice and their skills to these companies. Otherwise, they’re just going to take it anyway".

The producer's comments come in the wake of a series of recent high-profile deals between major record labels and prominent AI companies, under which consumers will be able to use AI to edit, remix or create new music based on the works of artists signed to those labels.

So far, Universal, Sony and Warner have all signed agreements with AI company Klay, whilst Warner and Universal have signed additional deals with Suno and Udio respectively.

However, the companies have stated that artists would need to opt in before AI models would gain access to their catalogues, and that royalties would be paid out each time their work was used by AI.

Stewart doesn't see deals like these as an existential threat to the industry - instead, he compares them to the emergence of drum machines in the 1980s, his own need to take out a £5,000 loan to fund the early days of Eurythmics, and the rise of the internet at the turn of the millennium.

Recalling a meeting he organised at Deutsche Bank's New York office in 2002, Stewart said, "I invited various people: Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder, Dr Dre, Dr Dre's lawyer. I was explaining, with the advent of the internet, that artists better start thinking in a different way, create their own world and take control back of whatever they could take control back of.”

More than two decades on, Stewart hopes that Rare will offer artists a way to do much the same, working proactively with AI whilst keeping their IP firmly in their own hands. According to the organisation's launch press release, "Rare brings together outstanding IP, elite talent, creativity and expert operations to turn bold ideas into living entities that shift the landscape".

"We exist to develop Entities and Originals that break the norms entirely. We explore new formats, create platforms that open new value, and experiences that reshape how culture is made and felt. And at the centre of every entity, creators and IP owners stay in control."

"Rare Entities are not stumbled upon; they are conjured, shaped, and crafted into being. Rare courage is choosing to build what does not yet exist and leaning into the unknown because the idea demands it. Rare vision is sensing what culture will crave tomorrow and laying the foundations today."

"And Rare instinct cannot be taught. It lives in the bloodstream, rises in the late-night rhythm, and becomes the pulse you trust when nothing else is certain." It remains to be seen just how harmoniously musicians will coexist with AI as technologies develop, but you can find out more about Rare by visiting its website.