AI Is Going to Make a Million Auteurs
Apr 12, 2026
Elvis and Michael Jackson are two of the best-selling artists of all time. Not because everyone loved them. Because everyone had the same several radio stations. Choice was limited.
When the tools to make music required a studio, a label, and a distribution deal, a handful of artists captured almost all the listeners. The market wasn’t choosing its preferred sounds. It was choosing from whatever got through the gate.
Then the tools got cheaper. Home studios. GarageBand. A laptop and a decent mic. Suddenly more people could make music, and more people did. Streaming gave all of it somewhere to live. Niche artists found niche audiences. Selling 100 million albums became rare.
But more people were making a living.
And more people found artists who truly resonated with them.
AI is the next version of this.
Suno generates a complete, produced song from a text description. You don’t need theory, an instrument, or a studio. Midjourney does the same for visual art.
More people will make things. A lot of it won’t be good. To you anyway.
But the filter used to be “can you operate the tools?” Now it’s “do you have something worth saying?” And objectively speaking, that’s a better filter for who gets to be an artist.
The Elvis era is over not because the music got worse, but because the options got better.