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AI search has become the bridge between human emotion and discovery. Here, Adam Taylor (CEO, APM) and Rob Wells (CEO, Orfium) outline the further potential for the technology in the sector…
In the 1980s, if a music supervisor needed the right track for a film or TV project, the process was slow and painstaking. They would phone APM Music, describe the sound they were looking for, and wait for vinyl records to be couriered over. Hours, sometimes days later, they would drop the needle, listen through a stack of LPs, and – if lucky – find the perfect fit.
Fast forward four decades, and that same catalogue is now accessible in seconds. APM has grown from 160,000 tracks in 2002 to more than 1.4 million tracks today, with 170 new albums added every month to meet global, cross-format demand. Music supervisors, creators, podcasters, influencers, gamers and streamers can search by mood, genre, or even a natural language prompt like “hopeful but unsettling orchestral build.”
The shift has been seismic.
Production music was once the domain of TV and film. Now, as was discussed at last year’s Production Music Conference, it is the unseen backbone of digital culture, underpinning everything from TikTok trends to live sports, branded content, podcasts and gaming streams. Licensed music is no longer a nice-to-have for online creators, it’s a necessity to avoid takedowns and, just as importantly, to drive audience engagement.
Take the a capella pop song Back To Me by Curtis Wiley, a production track from APM’s catalogue, which formed the backbone of a viral trend after appearing in TV show Pen15, amassing millions of plays. This story illustrates how technology, search tools and metadata have transformed not just how music is discovered but how it travels through the ecosystem, turning what was once a niche corner of the industry into a cultural force.
But as discovery has become instantaneous, another challenge has emerged: ensuring creators and rights-holders are actually paid in an ecosystem where billions of videos are uploaded every year. Here, AI has quietly become indispensable, not as a creative disruptor, but as the connective tissue keeping the economy fair and functional.
What the data tells us
APM now processes more than a million searches every month – an unparalleled data set that reveals global shifts in taste and usage. Hip-hop remains the most searched genre, thanks to its versatility across advertising, film trailers, sports programming and social media.
But hip-hop is far from the whole story. Diverse genres such as K-pop, Afrobeats, reggaeton and drill are seeing rising demand, reflecting a growing appetite for authentic storytelling and global sounds. High energy modern productions are the most in-demand for sports, promos and branded content, while emotionally nuanced cues – like minimalist piano, ambient textures, and orchestral hybrids – are essential for narrative-driven and documentary-style programming.
Such data offers a unique insight into the sound of culture in 2025: not dominated by a single genre or trend, but by the richness and intentionality with which creators are using music to elevate their work.
Creators are using music with precision and purpose, and that requires smarter systems capable of understanding what they mean by “uplifting but melancholic” or “slow build with cinematic tension.” AI search has become the bridge between human emotion and musical discovery.
From cue sheets to algorithms – the rights management evolution
If the “vinyl to viral” story charts how music discovery has transformed, the story of rights management is just as dramatic.
In the early 2000s, managing music rights was still a largely manual process. Cue sheets were filled out by hand or fax, royalties were tracked on sprawling spreadsheets, and missing data meant vast sums slipped through the cracks. As digital platforms exploded – first downloads, then streaming, now billions of UGC uploads – the scale of the challenge became unmanageable without sophisticated infrastructure.
We remember those days vividly. Tracking global revenues often felt like trying to control a tidal wave with a clipboard and a calculator. The introduction of AI changed that reality almost overnight.
Back then, identifying every single use of a track was impossible; there simply weren’t enough hours in the day. Today, at Orfium, our AI scans and recognises music across hundreds of millions of uploads, matches it against catalogues, and flags usage in real time. It’s not just automation, it’s intelligence. Machine learning systems detect patterns in how and where music is used, helping rightsholders anticipate trends, identify missing revenue, and strengthen licensing strategies.
The role of assistive AI in rights tech
Behind the scenes, platforms like Orfium provide the infrastructure that allows catalogues like APM’s, and the work of thousands of composers and partners worldwide, to be properly tracked, cleared and monetised at scale, performing three critical functions:
Revenue growth: AI-powered detection finds and monetises music across YouTube and other platforms, surfacing revenue that would otherwise go unclaimed. In 2026, Orfium is on track to surpass $1 billion in unclaimed royalties delivered back to rights-holders across its client base – a staggering sum that shows both the scale of the challenge and the opportunity.
The same rights technology that helps composers today will be vital in governing attribution, ownership and payment in the AI-assisted future
Adam Taylor & Rob Wells
Music usage insights: By processing cue sheet data with AI-driven audio recognition, technology can cut the time it takes to complete cue sheets – the detailed logs of all music used in films, TV shows, or video games – by almost 90%, from three hours to just 20 minutes. That efficiency provides intelligence on what music is used, where and when, helping libraries reconcile PRO payments and negotiate stronger license deals.
Proactive clearance: With AI tools like Orfium’s Synctracker, licensed tracks on platforms such as YouTube are automatically cleared, reducing disputes and smoothing the experience for both creators and rightsholders.
Without these systems, composers and catalogue partners would be millions worse off every year.
Importantly, this isn’t the kind of AI that replaces human creativity; it’s the kind that protects and amplifies it. Assistive AI is the invisible workforce that ensures the economic infrastructure keeps pace with artistic innovation.
The balance between creative and computational AI
Both Orfium and APM advocate for an industry where AI is used as a force for good that empowers artists and composers by building the infrastructure needed for greater efficiency, accuracy and transparency in areas such as licensing and monetisation. Our focus is on AI as an enabler, not a creator. At APM, we do not accept gen AI music or cover art into our catalogue.
That said, no discussion about AI and music can overlook the rise of generative technologies. These models can now create compositions at astonishing speed. But the real question is what happens next. Who owns the output? How do we track it? How can creators coexist with it?
The answer lies in building systems to detect and attribute copyrighted music within AI-generated outputs. And last year, Orfium was one of only three companies to be awarded funding from the European Commission to develop these as part of a consortium comprising leading institutions including Sorbonne University, Athens Research Centre, Amsterdam University Medical Centre, and the University of Barcelona, among others.
The same rights technology that helps composers today will be vital in governing attribution, ownership and payment in the AI-assisted future. If we get this right, AI won’t replace composers. It will coexist with them, expanding creative possibilities while keeping the economic chain intact.
Production music has gone from vinyl sleeves and couriered LPs to becoming one of the most important cultural currencies of the digital age. It is the soundtrack not just to Hollywood films but to viral videos, live sports, podcasts, and gaming platforms that reach billions of people daily.
The lesson for the industry is clear: generative AI may dominate headlines, but it’s assistive AI – the kind that powers discovery, licensing and monetisation – that will define the next era.
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Orfium and APM CEOs: How assistive AI is powering the next era of production music – Music Week
