GRAI believes that AI can make music more social, not replace artists

Today, AI music startups like Suno and Udio offer technology that leverages AI to generate music. But a new company letterHe believes that most people don’t want to use AI to create music from scratch – they’d rather do other things like remix tunes, share them with friends, or play with tracks by doing things like changing the track style, just for fun.

Of course, whether or not an artist wants anyone to manipulate their tracks, or to what extent, is for them to decide.

GRAI Music Lab, now backed by a $9 million seed round, wants to put that control in the hands of artists, while also harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to transform how consumers interact with music.

The company was built by former Belarusian founders They sold their video creation app VOCHI to Pinterestis experimenting with new music products powered by artificial intelligence. Today, this includes applications such as the remix application Music with Friends for iOS and Another AI music stadium for Android. These apps, and others that may be released in the future, will help inform the company about how consumers want to engage with music beyond AI-powered creativity or listening alone.

“The idea we’re building the company on is what the next thing in AI music interaction and consumption could be,” GRAI co-founder and CEO explains. Ilya Lyassonwho is currently residing in Poland along with much of the team. He says the main reason the founders created GRAI is because music has become one of the last major consumer categories that has not become “creator first.”

“We have problems – discovery is broken, listening is passive, and social context is almost non-existent,” Liasson says.

At the same time, he does not believe that artificial intelligence will kill artists and production companies, as some fear. Instead, the GRAI team believes that AI could lead to new ways of interacting with music, beyond simply creating a tune through generative AI technology.

The company intends to target its products at Gen Z and Gen Alpha users who tend to discover new music through culture, i.e. friends, fans, and through short-form content, such as TikTok. These users don’t want to become music creators or producers; They just want to be involved in one way or another.

To power its social apps, GRAI has developed its own taste and engagement graph as well as its own infrastructure. It is building a “derivatives pipeline” as well as real-time audio systems that will preserve the identity of the original tracks while allowing them to be converted.

As Liasun says, the company’s goal is to work with artists and their labels to make this type of activity legal. The end result is no more unwanted AI music.

“We don’t want to share the new AI gene with the streaming service,” Liasson says. “We’re really focusing on the engagement part.”

The idea is that users can play tracks within GRAI apps, perhaps remixing a favorite tune, or changing its style. Ultimately, these modified tracks could create a new source of royalty payments for artists and labels.

The company says it didn’t start building its social apps before turning to ratings for permission. Instead, Liasun points out, he talks to brands first.

“The main idea here is that we want to build a future system where artists have the ability to opt in or out.” This is GRAI’s core belief: “First, ask the owners, then integrate it,” he says. (Liasun declined to disclose whether it already has agreements in place or with any companies.)

If this type of music remixing activity becomes popular, GRAI believes it could help people discover new artists and songs outside of larger platforms like Reels, TikTok or YouTube.

Through its initial implementations, GRAI hopes to receive customer feedback — even negative feedback — to help it figure out what works and what doesn’t.

the a companyco-founded by CTO Dima Kamarosky and Andrei Avseevich (President), is now backed by $9 million in seed funding in a round co-led by Khosla Ventures and Inovo vc. Other investors, including Tensor Ventures, also participated. Tiny.VCFlyer One Ventures, a16z Scout Fund, and many angels, such as Andrew Zhai (ML in Cursor, co-founder of Genova Labs, formerly Pinterest); Greg Tkachenko (founder of Unreal Labs, formerly Snap); Rob Reid (founder of Rhapsody), and Dima Shvets (of MirAI and Reface).