Music tech predictions for 2026: Insights from Tuned Global

As 2026 approaches, the music industry faces significant technological and commercial change. Con Raso, Managing Director of music streaming technology solution provider Tuned Global, shared his perspective on seven key trends that will define the industry over the next 12 months and more.

Fraud and AI: A Billion-Dollar Problem

Streaming fraud represents one of the industry's most pressing challenges. It is "industrialised" now and no longer just bedroom hackers. There are networks exploiting loopholes in ways that mirror organised cybercrime.

"Experts in music fraud estimate streaming fraud at over a billion dollars a year, with 80% of that fraud being executed by sophisticated actors," Raso explains. 

"The goal of fraudsters is to get artificially generated or fraudulent tracks, sometimes made using unlicensed content, played repeatedly, often by hijacking a user's account. The royalties from those plays flow into the general pool and are then paid out to the perpetrators through rights ownership, just like legitimate artists. That's primarily how it's monetised." 

In a pro‑rata model, every fraudulent stream takes money away from real artists. It's not extra money, it's just unfairly dividing the same pie."

While AI is also creating issues through its generative capabilities, it is also part of a solution.

"AI in general is creating other challenges especially when it comes to impersonating artists' voices, videos, imagery and likenesses," Raso says. "Even though several companies claim to have detection tools, they're still in their nascent forms, and so we'd expect a lot of emerging technologies to assist with this situation. 

"That said, AI also gives us the ability to analyse deep behavioural patterns. Sophisticated fraud isn't easy to catch manually but with AI, it becomes possible." 

New Fan Engagement Models Will Expand

Raso sees real momentum building behind alternative payment models that give fans a direct line of support to artists, beyond the limitations of the current system. Payment models that reward actual listening behaviour will continue to evolve, creating new opportunities for fan engagement.

"Becoming more user-centric, in a basic sense, means that if someone listens to only one artist all month, and $5 of their subscription goes towards royalties, that artist should get the whole $5," he says. 

"In a pool-based model, it doesn't work like that. The money gets divided up across the market and mostly ends up with the biggest names. That's not rewarding fandom; it's reinforcing dominance."

Raso believes the biggest opportunity lies in giving superfans new ways to actively participate.

"With our social radio, fans can tip the artists they love directly, and that money flows to the artists they've picked. Super fans want to show their support, not just stream passively. Japan is a great example. Fans will buy five versions of the same CD just to demonstrate their loyalty. There's real passion there, and we should build more ways to honour it."

AI Will Replace Developers as Primary API Users

Raso expects that as AI agents grow in sophistication, a lot of music infrastructure will shift to serve AI systems directly as it will be AI doing the interfacing. 

"We're seeing that in the future, it will more likely be AIs that are querying our systems than developers directly. That's called MCP (Model Context Protocol), which is the technology that allows AI systems like OpenAI to use our APIs as though it was just an extension of itself," he says. 

"Developers could go to something like OpenAI and say, 'Here's what I'm building, I'm using Tuned Global, here are some credentials', and it would actually just use our infrastructure to actually build out a full end solution for them. It won't remove the developer but it will remove the plumbing." 

The addressable market for music technology continues to expand.

Gaming Will Adopt Real-Time Music Adaptation

Looking to gaming, Raso believes games will move beyond sync licensing to dynamic, gameplay-responsive soundtracks.

"That could be as simple as an AI bot looking at the people that are in the gameplay and adapting the music style and the music itself to actually align with the gameplay itself," he says. 

"That's much more instant and transient than being programmed at the time the game is created. Those opportunities exist because technology is allowing us to actually do these things in real time at the moment, whereas 12 months ago, it wasn't possible." 

DSPs Will Become More Selective About Content

To manage an anticipated flood of AI-generated music, Raso expects platforms will increasingly tighten curation standards. DSPs will raise the bar on what gets in and what stays.

"The challenge will be how you separate that noise on your data suggestion pipeline, and that's where data starts becoming really key and critical," he says.

Rather than endlessly scaling their catalogues, Raso sees platforms moving toward selectivity fast.

"I think DSPs will become harsher with respect to what they store and serve, because I don't think a DSP wants to store a billion tracks," he says.

"I think it'll be very much a case that you'll need to perhaps make a pitch why your track should be part of a DSP itself. Spotify's already started trimming; reportedly removing around 75 million spammy, AI-generated or low-quality tracks over the last year. That's just the beginning."