AI Music Creation Era, "Sound Revolution" Formally Begins
The landscape of the music production market is shaking once again. New York-based audio sample platform Splice has acquired UK premium virtual instrument maker Spitfire Audio for approximately 50 million USD. Through this acquisition, Splice formally enters the plugin market in addition to its existing audio sample subscription business and rent-to-own model. The plugin market is currently valued at approximately 640 million USD -- Splice plans to aggressively target the explosively growing music production market based on this. Midia Research projects the global music production market will grow to approximately 14 billion USD by 2031 -- nearly double current size. The Goldman Sachs connection: Goldman Sachs has been tracking the AI sound revolution thesis -- that AI tools dramatically lowering the barrier to professional music production will expand the addressable market; Splice is positioned at the intersection of sample licensing (which benefits from more producers creating more content) and AI-assisted production tools; the Spitfire Audio acquisition adds high-quality orchestral and cinematic samples that AI composition tools increasingly use for output. The AI music production landscape: Suno and Udio can generate complete songs from text prompts; tools like Splice AI help producers find samples that match a desired mood; Spitfire Audio orchestral instruments provide the high-quality acoustic foundation that makes AI-generated music sound professional; the convergence creates a complete AI-assisted music production stack from composition concept to professional-sounding output.
