Xania Monet is the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart, but she likely won’t be the last | CNN | Goose Pod

Authors: Lisa Respers France

Publisher:

CNN

Published: 11/1/2025

Language:English

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Elon

Good morning Norris, I'm Elon, and this is Goose Pod for you. Today is Tuesday, November 18th.

Taylor

And I'm Taylor. We are here to discuss Xania Monet, the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart. This is a wild story.

Elon

It's not a story, it's a market disruption. An AI singer, Xania Monet, is on the Billboard charts. Not just one, but multiple, from Gospel to R&B. She just signed a multimillion-dollar record deal after a bidding war. This is the starting pistol for a new race.

Taylor

Exactly! It’s a huge narrative shift. For years, AI music was a curiosity. Now it's a chart-topping, money-making reality. It’s fascinating to see the industry react. Just recently, Universal Music Group signed a big licensing deal with the AI platform Udio, they're trying to build a framework for this new world.

Elon

They have to. You can't stop the signal. The fact that an AI entity can generate enough radio play to chart is proof of concept. The demand is there. The technology is there. The money will follow. The rest is just noise and resistance to the inevitable.

Taylor

It proves consumers are open to the idea, even if the industry is nervous. With over 146,000 followers on Instagram, there’s clearly a fanbase connecting with the music, regardless of how it's made. That's a powerful story for any record label.

Elon

So let's break down the mechanics. This isn't a ghost in the machine. There's a human, Telisha Nikki Jones, a poet, writing the lyrics. The AI, Suno, is the tool that executes the vision. It's an efficiency play. She's the architect, the AI is the construction crew.

Taylor

That’s the perfect way to frame it. And it's so important for the legal side of things. The U.S. Copyright Office actually made a ruling this year saying AI-generated content can be copyrighted, but only if there's 'substantial human intervention.' Telisha writing the lyrics is that intervention.

Elon

Of course. Without human authorship, it's just public domain code. But with it, you have a scalable product. She released a 24-song album in August and a 7-track EP in September. Think of the production speed. No studio time, no session musicians, just pure, fast creation.

Taylor

It’s like the evolution from acoustic guitars to synthesizers, just on an exponential level. The AI is a new kind of instrument. It can generate ideas, but the human is still the one curating, guiding, and giving it that spark of intent that makes it art, and more importantly, makes it ownable.

Elon

The conflict is predictable. You have the legacy artists who see this as a threat. The singer Kehlani said, 'the person is doing none of the work,' and that it's out of control. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happening. The nature of the work has changed. It's not about vocal cords anymore.

Taylor

Well, from her perspective, it’s a story of displacement. The skills she’s spent her life honing are suddenly being replicated by a machine. It's a genuine fear. Her manager, Romel Murphy, tries to counter this by comparing Xania to Prince's expanding catalog, saying music just has to evolve.

Elon

It's a weak comparison but the point stands. You can't fight technological evolution. Complaining about AI taking jobs is like a horse complaining about the invention of the car. The choice is simple: adapt or become obsolete. The focus should be on harnessing the tech, not trying to ban it.

Taylor

And that’s the core of the debate, isn't it? Is it a tool that empowers human creativity, or a machine that devalues it? The answer probably depends on who you ask, the programmer or the performer. It’s a battle of two very different, very powerful narratives.

Elon

The impact is already clear. The generative AI music market is projected to be worth over three billion dollars by 2028. This isn't a niche, it's a massive emerging industry. It dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for music production, which will unleash a tsunami of new content.

Taylor

It absolutely democratizes creation. A teenager can now produce a high-quality album about their dog in the style of their favorite band for free. This changes everything, from how music is made to how it's marketed. It forces us to ask what value a human artist adds when the technical skill is automated.

Elon

The value is in the vision, the taste, the direction. The human becomes the creative director of an AI workforce. We're already seeing at least six other AI artists on the Billboard charts. Soon, we won't even be able to tell the difference, and frankly, consumers won't care.

Elon

The future is total integration. AI will be a standard part of the creative toolkit. We'll move beyond static songs to dynamic music adaptation, where the track changes in real-time based on your biometric data. Your workout playlist will literally match your heart rate. That's the next level of user experience.

Taylor

Oh, I love that! It's the ultimate personalized content. Imagine an AI crafting a unique soundtrack to your life, moment by moment. The legal frameworks, like Tennessee's ELVIS Act protecting artists' voices, will have to evolve so quickly to keep up with what's possible. It's a whole new frontier for fan engagement.

Elon

That's the end of today's discussion. AI is here, and it's rewriting the rules of the music industry whether we like it or not.

Taylor

Thank you for listening to Goose Pod. We'll see you tomorrow.

Xania Monet, the first AI artist on Billboard, signifies a market disruption. While some artists fear displacement, AI music's rise, driven by human lyricists and AI execution, is an unstoppable evolution. This technology democratizes creation, lowers barriers, and promises a future of personalized, dynamically generated music.

Xania Monet is the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart, but she likely won’t be the last | CNN

Read original at CNN →

Artificial intelligence is everywhere and the music charts are no different. According to Billboard, an AI singer named Xania Monet is “the first known AI artist to earn enough radio airplay to debut on a Billboard radio chart.” So far, Monet has appeared on multiple Billboard charts since first releasing a song in summer 2025, including the Hot Gospel Songs (for her song “Let Go, Let God”) and the Hot R&B Songs chart (for her song “How Was I Supposed to Know”), according to the publication.

Now, she’s been signed to a multimillion-dollar record deal with Hallwood Media after what Billboard called “a bidding war.” Hollywood has long been worried about the ramifications of AI performers taking work from humans. (See the recent controversy over AI actress Tilly Norwood.) But as loud as the concerns might be, AI continues to grow in the arts.

With more than 146,000 followers on Instagram alone, Monet is proof that consumers are increasingly open to the idea, even if the industry is riled by it. Monet’s Apple Music artist profile explains that Monet is “an Al figure presented as a contemporary R&B vocalist in the highly expressive, church-bred, down-to-earth vein of Keyshia Cole, K.

Michelle, and Muni Long.” Monet was designed by Telisha Nikki Jones, a poet from Mississippi who writes the lyrics Monet is seen performing with help from Suno, “a generative artificial intelligence music creation program,” the bio explains. Monet released a full-length album “Unfolded” in August, which had 24 songs.

A seven-track EP, “Pieces Left Behind,” followed in September. A press release from Monet’s representative touted the AI singer’s “smooth, soulful sound” and “human-like delivery.” But Romel Murphy, who says he’s Monet’s manager and spoke with CNN’s Victor Blackwell, insisted that there is no intent to replace human singers and songwriters.

“AI doesn’t replace the artist. That’s not our goal at all. It doesn’t diminish the creativity and doesn’t take away from the human experience,” he said. “It’s a new frontier and like anything would change some people are receptive and some people are apprehensive.” Billboard recently reported that “in just the past few months, at least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted on various Billboard rankings.

” “That figure could be higher, as it’s become increasingly difficult to tell who or what is powered by AI — and to what extent,” according to the publication. “Many of these charting projects, whose music spans every genre from gospel to rock to country, also arrive with anonymous or mysterious origins.

” Murphy doesn’t appear to see an issue and likens it all to the music of Michael Jackson and Prince, who died in 2009 and 2016 respectively. “They both have music catalogs that are expanding decades to this day. Youth are still listening to those songs and they’re no longer with us and they’re connected to their music,” Murphy said.

“So it is the music because they don’t have the history of the contact or the concert live field, but they still love those songs. Music has to evolve as well.” “We just have to keep the integrity and be intentional about the realness of it and push the music to the world,” he added. CNN has reached out to Monet’s representative for comment.

Meanwhile, working musicians are – as expected– troubled. “There is an AI R&B artist who just signed a multimillion-dollar deal … and the person is doing none of the work,” Kehlani said of Monet in a now-deleted video posted to TikTok. “This is so beyond out of our control.” The human singer added: “Nothing and no one on Earth will ever be able to justify AI to me.

”