Suno Launches New AI Model Trained on Licensed WMG, BMG Tracks

Suno launched its long-awaited new model trained exclusively on licensed music on Tuesday, a major milestone for the AI generation platform that has faced allegations of mass copyright infringement from across the music industry.

Suno announced three new models on Tuesday — V6, V6-wild and V6-mini — all trained on music from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe Music, which had carved out partnerships with the company for their content. With the new models here, the old models will be retired.

In a blog post announcing the models, Suno founder and CEO Mikey Shulman called the new models “faster, more expressive and higher quality,” while touting several new features including using plain language commands to instruct Suno’s model to make edits to a track, the ability to make samples from tracks and making songs based on images and videos.

“We believe this is a blueprint for how AI and the music industry can strengthen one another and build entirely new product experiences for artists, fans, and the broader music community,” Shulman said.

V6 is the standard model for Suno’s paying subscribers, while the wild model gives “less predictable” tracks from prompts, which Suno Chief Product Officer Jack Brody said came from feedback from songwriters and producers, who he says are seeking ideas they wouldn’t have come up with on their own. The mini model is the free version available for non-paying subscribers.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Suno Chief Product Officer Jack Brody declined to say just how many songs or which specific artists’ tracks were used to train the models, and he declined to specify much the stakeholders are getting paid. Brody did confirm, though, that Suno is sharing a portion of its revenue with its stakeholder partners, adding that how they distribute that revenue among their artists is up to them.

Suno’s new model comes nearly 10 months after the company carved out its first music industry partnership, making a landmark deal with WMG last November. WMG, the smallest of the big three record companies, previously sued Suno alongside fellow major labels Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group, accusing Suno of mass copyright infringement. BMG followed this past August, while Believe announced its deal with Suno on Tuesday.

While Suno has sought to carve out inroads with the music business, it remains one of the most controversial companies in the music industry, with consumers still resistant to AI content while the industry has voiced concern over how AI slop can flood streaming services. While the new model is now out, Suno still faces a copyright infringement suit from UMG and Sony, as well as a newly filed class action from singer-songwriter Jason Isbell.