Warner Music Group on Wednesday announced its acquisition of the startup Sureel AI, a platform that uses a technology called “AI DNA” in an effort to protect creative projects and other intellectual property — including music, voices, likeness and performance — from unauthorized use and monetization by AI training models.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Sureel, founded in 2022, works to track how artists’ content are used by generative AI models, using patented technology to trace how and when work is used and make it easier for those artists to be compensated. That technology is deployed by the user via a dashboard (pictured below).
The deal will see Sureel continue to operate as a standalone company. The acquisition, founder and CEO Tamay Aykut said in a statement, would help Sureel “deliver on our mission at scale, building a more transparent and fair future and driving value growth for the whole music and entertainment ecosystem.
“Rightsholders deserve to know how AI interacts with their work, and to share fairly in the value it creates,” Aykut said. “Sureel was built to make that possible.”
