“AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business”: Tallinn Music Week panel plays down concerns around AI musicTallinn Music Week is a festival showcase celebrating emerging artists from all over the world. Each year, it puts on concerts in pub venues and industry conferences discussing important matters in the music industry. Such events include mentorships on music education, the importance of platforming misrepresented voices and the role festivals play in the music industry, to name a few.
On Saturday, 11 April, the festival hosted a conference on the evolution of AI in music, titled ‘Too Much Music. AI Is Flooding the Market. Who Survives?’ It was hosted by Rannar Park, the Head of Research and Development for Brand Estonia.

READ MORE: At Tallinn Music Week 2026, electronic artists are making the case for human-made music

Joining him on the panel were Estonian artist Kitty Florentine, DJ and Somewhere Soul A&R Josh Mason-Quinn, and composer and A Shell in the Pit founder Gordon McGladdery.
“Hands up, who thinks the first one is AI. Hands up with thinks the second one is AI,” said Florentine, after playing snippets of her demos. After some guessing from the audience, the emerging experimental-pop artist confirmed that the second example was made by AI music generator Suno.
Many audience members suggested they could spot the difference due to a “feeling”, while others elaborated that it was down to a level of intuition that “there is not enough human agency in it”. Those making the effort to attend a music conference are likely to be able to spot the often-subtle nuances that separate AI and human-made art, but it begs the question, is the wider music listening world quite so adept?
Alongside discussing the evolution of AI in music, the conference also reassured aspiring musicians with the basics of its complications, in three points:

Clients you will lose to generative AI weren’t good clients
People don’t like AI art
You cannot own the IP to the product created by generative AI

“A human curator can surprise you. We can take risks,” said Mason-Quinn.
“An algorithm sharing AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business… that’s why human recommendation is valuable… a human curator can take you where you’ve never been before,” he continued.
“People appreciate effort. AI removes that effort,” McGladdery added. However, speculations about AI weren’t just about how it has the potential to damage real music. “What if I like it? I’m scared of that scenario,” says a person in the crowd, followed by a shy usher of ‘umms’ from the audience, in agreement.
“I think there’s a hard limit on how much you can enjoy it. Because you can’t see it live,” McGladdery adds.
The AI discourse continues to be a growing matter in the music industry, but ultimately, for Mason-Quinn, it all comes down to the fact, “AI can create music, sure, but it can’t create context out of thin air. It can’t create the meaning and the life experiences of the artist who creates it.”
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