GRAI believes that AI can make music belong to the community, not instead of the artist

Today’s AI music startups, such as Suno and Udio, offer technology that supports artificial intelligence to create music. But the new company, Speakingbelieves that most people don’t want to use AI to create music from scratch – they’d rather do other things like remix music, share it with friends, or play with music by doing things like changing the style of music, just for fun.

Of course, whether an artist wants everyone to play around with their music, or to what extent, is something they have to decide.

Music lab GRAI, which is now backed by a $9 million seed round, wants to put that power in the hands of artists, and use the power of AI to change the way consumers interact with music.

The company, built by former Belarusian founders sold their video creation app VOCHI to Pinterestis experimenting with new music AI. Today, this includes apps like remixing apps Music and Friends for iOS and another AI music player for Android. These programs, and others that may be sent in the future, will help inform the company how consumers want to experience music beyond the creation of AI or just listening.

“The idea that we’re building the company is what could be the next step in AI music integration and use,” explains GRAI’s co-founder. Ilya Liasunwho is currently in Poland along with most of the team. He says the main reason the founders of GRAI started GRAI is that music has become one of the last consumer groups that hasn’t gone “producer-first.”

“We have problems – discovery is broken, listening is not done, and social media is non-existent,” says Liasun.

At this point, he doesn’t think AI will kill artists and writers, as some fear. In fact, the GRAI team believes that AI can lead to new ways of interacting with music, beyond just creating music through AI technology.

The company wants to focus its products on users of Gen Z and Gen Alpha who like to find new music through social media, meaning friends, fandoms, and short products, such as TikTok. These users do not want to be producers or music producers; they just want to be involved in some way.

To leverage its social media programs, GRAI developed its own brand image and engagement tools. It is developing “import pipelines” and real-time audio systems that will preserve the original music track record while allowing them to be edited.

As Liasun says, the company’s goal is to work with artists and their writings to make this kind of work acceptable. And the result is not to add unnecessary AI music.

“We don’t want to share the new genAI slop to the marketing service. We focus on the interactive part,” says Liasun.

The idea is that users can play with music within the GRAI software, perhaps mixing the music they like, or changing its appearance. Ultimately, the edited music could create a new source of royalties for artists and labels.

The company says it hasn’t started developing its social media apps before going to the registrants for approval. Instead, says Liasun, it’s talking about letters first.

“The main idea here is that we want to create a system for the future that professionals can come in and out of.” This, he says, is the main belief of GRAI: “first, ask the owners, and then integrate.” (Liasun declined to disclose whether they already have contracts in place or with companies.)

If this type of music editing becomes popular, GRAI believes that it can help people find new artists and music outside of the big platforms like Reels, TikTok, or YouTube.

With its first programs, GRAI hopes to receive consumer feedback – even negative feedback – to help them determine what works and what doesn’t.

The companydeveloped by the CTO Dima Kamaruski and Andrei Avsievich (President), is now supported by $9 million in seed funding in a partnership led by Khosla Ventures and Inovo vc. Other investors participated, including Tensor Ventures, Small. VCFlyer One Ventures, a16z Scout Fund, and various angels, such as Andrew Zhai (ML in Cursor, co-founder of Genova Labs, ex-Pinterest); Greg Tkachenko (founder of Unreal Labs, ex-Snap); Rob Reid (Founder of Rhapsody), and Dima Shvets (of MirAI and Reface).