AI & music streaming in 2026: it's crunch time for creators

Ep. 179: It's a Very Special Episode of Music Ally’s Focus podcast in which Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow can roll up their sleeves and look at the impact that AI is having on streaming in 2026 – and there’s a whole lot of nuance, what-if’s, and context to rummage around in.

It's all connected to Music Ally's latest Insight Report (available to Music Ally Subscribers here: https://musically.com/category/reports) – and that report focuses on 5 “C”’s of AI and streaming. Stu and Joe picked two of the biggest: Crunch Time, and Creativity:

• Crunch Time: AI and the music industry are finally at a true inflection point where decisions need to be made and lines need to be drawn. So where’s that line: how much of a song can be AI-generated before it’s classed as “AI music” – or is there a dawning reality that this is not even a distinction that can be made any more?

• Creativity: If it’s not realistic to divide songs into “AI” and “not AI” piles, should we instead not be asking “is AI truly creative?”, but “how will people be truly creative when using AI?” And is the pie being grown when a poet adds their words to an AI-generated song, or a teenage producer samples AI-music they generate?

It’s a spirited, feisty and opinionated conversation (i.e. Stu and Joe agreeably disagreed a little bit) – and it’ll help you to get up to speed with two of the key issues that we’ll all deal with in some way or another this year.