January 7, 2026 Universal Music Group (UMG) has teamed up with NVIDIA to integrate AI into the music experience. This collaboration, which merges NVIDIA’s cutting-edge AI technology with UMG’s expansive music catalog, aims to enhance music discovery, engagement and creation while ensuring responsible AI usage.
The centerpiece of this partnership is NVIDIA’s Music Flamingo model, which offers an unprecedented approach to music intelligence. Music Flamingo uses AI to deeply analyze songs, including their harmony, structure, timbre, lyrics and cultural context. Unlike traditional tagging methods, it delivers a nuanced understanding of music that empowers listeners to discover songs based on emotional and cultural resonance rather than just genre or tempo. The model has outperformed others in areas like music captioning, instrument recognition and multilingual lyric transcription.
“This technology will allow fans to discover music in more meaningful ways, while artists can tap into deeper creative possibilities,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG’s Chairman and CEO. “Our collaboration with NVIDIA will set new standards in AI innovation, enhancing the role of music in global culture.”
As part of the collaboration, a new artist incubator will be established, bringing together musicians, songwriters, and producers to test and develop AI-driven creation tools. These tools are designed to support artists’ creativity while avoiding the pitfalls of generic AI-generated content. The initiative focuses on keeping artists at the forefront of AI innovation, ensuring that technology enhances, rather than replaces, human creativity.
Additionally, UMG’s Music & Advanced Machine Learning Lab (MAML) will work alongside NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure to develop these tools and provide feedback on how AI can improve the music industry. The companies are also leveraging world-class studios such as Abbey Road and Capitol Studios for further research and development.
In a world where AI is increasingly transforming industries, this collaboration stands out by emphasizing responsible use, copyright protection and artist empowerment. Richard Kerris, NVIDIA’s VP/GM of Media, highlighted that the partnership would enable a new era of music engagement, where music catalogs can be explored interactively and contextually. By extending NVIDIA’s Music Flamingo with UMG’s unmatched catalog and creative ecosystem, we’re going to change how fans discover, understand, and engage with music on a global scale. And we’ll do it the right way: responsibly, with safeguards that protect artists’ work, ensure attribution, and respect copyright,” he said.
