Sean Parker rebuilds Stability AI around music: $76 million in funding from Sony, Warner and Universal

Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster, and chief executive Prem Akkaraju are rebuilding Stability AI around music — aiming to turn the troubled artificial intelligence startup into the main AI tool for music professionals, as TechCrunch reports.

Two years ago, Parker joined an $80 million rescue of Stability AI, the image-generator startup that nearly went bankrupt after overspending and internal turmoil that led to the departure of founder Emad Mostaque. Now, according to his interview with The Information, cited by TechCrunch, the big idea is to orient the company fully towards music creators.

At the end of August, the company announced $76 million in new funding from, among others, Sony, Warner and Universal — which also licensed their catalogues for training the models, as part of the deal.

Since then, Stability has released three new audio models and AI music-editing software: the system can generate full instrumental songs or short musical fragments from text descriptions. Parker says an upcoming update will allow users to hum a melody or tap a rhythm to guide the creation.

Parker told The Information that this time he is “playing by the rules” — a clear reference to Napster, the platform that once asked for forgiveness instead of permission for music rights.