AI

Modulate launches AI music detection as synthetic tracks flood streaming

Voice artificial intelligence company Modulate Inc. today launched a tool that flags AI-generated music straight from the audio.

The product, an application programming interface called AI Music Detection, scores how likely a clip is to contain AI vocals or AI instrumentals and gives a verdict on the whole file. Streaming services, distributors and rights holders can use it to catch synthetic tracks flooding their catalogs.

Modulate built the model to tackle a problem the music industry has struggled to get ahead of: Generative tools can now produce convincing songs in seconds and the systems that distribute, recommend and pay out royalties on music were not designed to tell human work apart from machine output. Much of the response so far has leaned on voluntary disclosure, metadata and watermarking, all of which depend on a track being labeled correctly at the source.

“Disclosure is important, but that alone is not enough,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Mike Pappas. “If a platform only knows what uploaders choose to tell it, then it has no reliable way to manage the scale of AI-generated content entering the system.”

The launch comes as money floods into AI music generation. Suno Inc., the best-known of the AI music startups, raised $400 million on June 3 at a $5.4 billion valuation, up from $2.45 billion late last year.

Modulate’s approach runs on three models working together. The first checks each slice of audio for music, speech or both. The other two work separately, one judging whether the vocals are AI, the other the instrumentals. Splitting the job that way means the API can flag a song that pairs an AI vocal with a real backing track, or the reverse, instead of just calling the whole thing AI or not. The ensemble is built on Velma, the company’s audio intelligence platform.

On internal testing against leading generators, including Suno’s 5.5 model, Modulate said the system reached 95% precision across 76 genres. Modulate said it trained the model to spot AI generation patterns broadly rather than memorize the quirks of any one tool.

Modulate was founded in 2017 and made its name in online gaming, where its technology moderates voice chat in noisy, live, multilingual environments. The company says that background taught it to build audio models that hold up outside clean lab conditions. AI music is the latest place it’s putting them to work.

Modulate said it’s already fielding interest from major labels and distribution platforms. The API could feed future consumer tools such as browser extensions, verification badges or Shazam-style apps that tell listeners whether a track is human, machine or some mix of the two.

AI Music Detection is available now through the Modulate API platform.

Image: Modulate