Exploring the impact of generative AI on the music composition market: a study on public perception, behavior, and industry implications.

The integration of generative AI is transforming the music composition industry by reshaping traditional processes and democratizing composition, making it more accessible and efficient. Despite the many challenges that still make us think of this innovation as distant and unrealistic, such as the absence of a dominant model architecture, the lack of standardized evaluation methods, and many ethical concerns, some applications have already been launched on the market. This study aims to address the potential of the industry by studying the public’s behavior, prejudice, and awareness. A survey, made of five sections, was then created, asking for demographic information, musical background, technological awareness, opinions on the use of AI in music, levels of acceptance of AI-music used for specific activities, and the level of attention paid to music during those activities. Moreover, the respondents were asked to listen to four music extracts and try to identify their origin (human or AI) after evaluating their quality. The results show that curiosity is the most general sentiment towards AI’s potential, however, prejudice against AI-generated pieces remains relevant to the point that when people have to evaluate extracts of unknown origin, they give lower points to the extracts that they think are made by AI. Low awareness of the topic often heightens skepticism, which can shift positively with simple exposure to AI-generated music. Focusing on the potential applications, listeners are generally indifferent to music origin in casual settings like gaming, shopping, or exercise, making AI music viable in background contexts. However, attention to music slightly impacts acceptance. Therefore, to ensure market growth and foster a receptive market for generative AI music products, it is critical for the industry to increase public awareness, manage audience expectations, and define standards, starting from the background music market which will likely encounter less resistance.