YouTube is testing a new feature that will let creators use AI to “restyle” licensed songs for their shorts. The small group of creators with access can enter a prompt to change up different elements in a song, such as its mood or genre, and the expansion of YouTube’s Dream Track AI feature will generate a reworked 30-second soundtrack.
YouTube:
If you’re a creator in the experiment group, you can select an eligible song > describe how you want to restyle it > then generate a unique 30-second soundtrack to use in your Short.
These restyled soundtracks will have clear attribution to the original song through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI
YouTube has said the Dream Track experiment allows creators to make songs using the AI-generated voices of artists who agreed to participate, including Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, and John Legend. We still don’t know which songs are available to restyle in this test or which music labels YouTube is partnering with. However, a June report from the Financial Times suggested YouTube approached major music labels with an offer to use their songs to train AI models.
The Verge reached out to YouTube with a request for more information but didn’t immediately hear back.
