What Suno’s $5.4 billion valuation says about the future of AI and music—and what remains uncertain
Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In today’s issue: The small business owners managing whole armies of AI employees…Meta keeps delaying the release of its new AI Model to developers…How courts are coping with a flood of AI-generated lawsuits. Yesterday, AI music generator Suno announced a new $400 million funding round at a $5.4 billion valuation, the latest sign that investors believe AI-generated music is here to stay. Ironically, just a few days earlier, I was sitting in a 14th-century French château in the Loire Valley with a dozen other songwriters, geeking out over lyrics, melodies, and rhyme schemes at a bucket-list retreat. The contrast, of course, is striking: On one side, a startup built on the idea that anyone can create a song in seconds. On the other, people traveling across the ocean to spend a week doing it the slow way. But after spending the week far away from Silicon Valley, both physically and metaphorically, I’m not convinced either vision settles the bigger questions about AI music. Remarkably convincing songs in seconds If you’ve ever tried Suno (and I strongly suggest you do), it’s pretty awesome. With a simple text prompt, it can generate remarkably convincing songs in seconds. The possibilities can be breathtaking, hysterically funny, and viral, like the trend this spring turning messaging threads with friends into songs, and then sharing them on TikTok. Personally, I enjoyed this Suno-generated song that turned text messages between Sam Altman and Mira Murati from the day Altman was fired from OpenAI in 2023—messages later introduced as evidence in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI—into a song in the style of the Broadway musical Hamilton. In a blog post announcing the new funding, Suno wrote that its initial focus was simple—to allow more people to experience the joy of making music. “In recent months, we’ve seen Suno become part of culture in ways that continue to surprise us