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ZDNET's key takeaways
An AI-generated artist got a $3 million record deal.
A human artist uses AI platform Suno to generate the persona.
Creative industries continue to sue AI companies.
An AI-generated musician persona run by a human R&B artist has received a $3 million record deal -- amidst several lawsuits targeting AI companies encroaching on creative industries.
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Telisha "Nikki" Jones, who's behind the AI-generated artist Xania Monet, accepted the record deal, which is with Hallwood Media. She combines elements of her real-life songwriting abilities with AI-generated vocals, images, and musical production.
Jones uses AI music generation startup Suno -- which is currently being sued by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) -- to make her music. This scenario presents two sides of one coin: While the RIAA claims Suno stole audio from YouTube videos, bypassing legal protections, others are using the platform to achieve stardom they wouldn't have accessed otherwise.
AI music and musicians
According to Billboard, Jones writes all of Monet's lyrics and takes "full ownership" of the production credits. However, Murphy admitted to Billboard that Jones is not the "vocal beast" Monet is, though it's unclear how much Suno's platform is responsible for Monet's vocals.
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Monet first impacted charts during the week of Sept. 20, 2025, when her song "How Was I Supposed to Know" reached No.1 on R&B Digital Song Sales, Billboard writes. The same song enjoys TikTok popularity, achieving over 80,000 posts and the 39th spot on TikTok's Top 50 Music Chart.
On TikTok, Xania Monet's page displays her 322,000 followers, over one million likes, and AI-generated videos of her singing in recording booths, studios, apartments, and sporting arenas. The vibrant colors, overly smoothed skin, oddly cut clips, and generally uncanny valley vibe immediately read as AI-generated to a trained eye. However, there isn't any mention of AI on Monet's page.
Some users in the comments wonder when the other dedicated fans will realize the artist is AI-generated, while others explain how, despite being sung by an AI artist, Monet's lyrics deeply touch them, giving them a song that mirrors their life experiences. Others, are finding out via the comments that Monet is not a real person. Put simply: some people care, some people don't, and others have no clue.
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According to Billboard's interview with Murphy, Monet plans to use more human producers on her upcoming music and is planning her first live performance, though it's unclear how. Hallwood Media has also signed a recording agreement with imoliver, Suno's top-streaming creator.
Lawsuits against AI companies
The use of AI in creative spaces has been an ongoing debate since the technology's advancements began to encroach on artistic professionals. Visual artists, film directors, writers, and music artists have expressed irritation at artificial intelligence companies training their image, video, language, and voice models on existing works of art. Plenty of lawsuits have been filed -- almost always on the legal basis of copyright infringement.
The RIAA's lawsuit against Suno alleges that the platform "stream-ripped" songs from artists on YouTube to train its AI voice models, a process that involves copying existing artists' voices and converting them into downloadable files. The suit represents labels like Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment.
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According to the RIAA's lawsuit, stream-ripping illegally uses copyrighted material from artists like Mariah Carey and The Temptations. Perhaps that's why some of Monet's commenters hear a mix of existing artists' voices in her recordings.
Elsewhere, the New York Times sued OpenAI for unpermitted use of articles to train large language models, and Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for unpermitted use of their films and characters to train image creation models. Anthropic just settled a lawsuit with three authors.
Individual artists have also sued other AI companies for using their work to train models, and the legal opinions are moving more slowly than the technology's development. Most of the defense lies in fair use, while artists and companies claim plagiarism and copyright infringement.
Why it matters
If AI can land a record deal, who profits?
At the very least, Jones is a public musician behind Monet's persona. But an R&B star whose voice, image, and promotional material are AI-generated draws comparisons to a popular AI-generated (and somewhat less transparent) influencer, Lil Miquela.
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Like Xania Monet, Lil Miquela signed a multi-million dollar deal with a talent agency, and there are real people behind her digital persona. The studio behind Lil Miquela and its investors receives the money Lil Miquela is paid from brand partnerships and advertisements. But many questions -- and few answers -- arise from asking the same about Monet.
Surely, Jones, her manager, producers, and other studio personnel get a cut of her $3 million record deal, but could Suno or the AI platform responsible for Monet's digital appearance demand a cut? Technically, Suno and other AI platforms created Monet's voice and likeness, so how, if at all, do they fit into her moneymaking success?
To some, the AI-generated artist's record deal indicates innovation in the music industry, giving opportunities to people without connections, wealth, or even conventional beauty. To others, like popular R&B artist Kehlani, it takes away from the real people who dedicate their lives and talents to their art. The artist expressed disdain for AI-generated music and for offering record deals to people who use it.
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It'll be interesting to see how far Monet's career as an AI-generated music artist will go without media appearances and live performances, and how developed the track recordings can be within the technology's confines.
The "AI in art" conversation also forces companies to reckon with how much they want to incorporate AI into their business models. Although the total use of AI to write articles, create artwork, or generate short motion pictures is considered taboo, is altogether omitting AI from creative practices an antiquated train of thought?
Or, does the debate boil down to who uses AI within their creative practices? Perhaps the issue is that publishers, artists, studios, and record labels should have the option to lend their existing work to AI models, instead of having no say.
The legal road to using generative AI in creative practices has already been long, and there are no signs of it shortening anytime soon.