UMG Partner ElevenLabs, Valued at $11B, to Launch AI-Powered Fan Remix Platform

5 things You Need to Know About ElevenLabs, the UMG AI partner with an $11B valuation – and big ambitions in music.

September 15, 2026 By Mandy Dalugdug MBW Explains is a series in which we dig behind the headlines, via data and context, to improve your understanding of key stories. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles. MBW Explains is supported by Reservoir . Continue to article...

Universal Music Group and AI audio company ElevenLabs announced a multi-year licensing agreement last Thursday ( September 10 ).

Under it, ElevenLabs will build a fan platform for remixes, mashups, and “new track interpretations,” kept separate from its existing ElevenMusic app and Music API .

It is ElevenLabs ‘ first deal with a major label, according to the two firms.

ElevenLabs was valued at USD $11 billion in February. That is around three-quarters of Warner Music Group ‘s public market cap at the start of September.

Here are five things to know about UMG ‘s AI strategy.

1. Fan modification is widespread, and UMG is now licensing it

Content identification firm Pex estimated in a 2024 study that 38.03% of songs it identified on TikTok during 2023 had been speed- or pitch-modified, up from 24.55% a year earlier.

That analysis drew on around 100 million tracks. Less than 1% of identified uploads across the platforms Pex analyzed flagged the modification in the title.

“Rising in popularity, modified audio remixes often divert royalty payments away from rightsholders and into the hands of other creators,” Pex said in the report.

Altered audio evades straightforward copyright detection on TikTok .

Pex measured music on TikTok as a whole, not UMG ‘s share of it. How much modified audio is copyrighted, and how much belongs to UMG , has not been publicly established.

UMG ‘s response is not in doubt: it has spent this year licensing that behavior across three deals.

2. Universal has signed three fan-creation deals in under four months

In May, Universal became the first music company to license Spotify ‘s forthcoming AI covers and remixes tool, which will launch as a paid Premium add-on.

In August, it signed a licensing partnership with Hook for fan creations on social media. Then came ElevenLabs .

All three are opt-in for UMG artists, and all share revenue.

“The most exciting possibilities for AI and music are those that put artists, songwriters, and fans at the center,” said Sir Lucian Grainge , Chairman and CEO of UMG , of the ElevenLabs deal. “UMG and ElevenLabs are aligned that responsible AI can inspire discovery, deepen engagement between artists and fans, and unlock new revenue opportunities for the creative community.

“ ElevenLabs ‘ leadership in AI audio brings a new dimension to our growing ecosystem of partners committed to expanding what’s creatively and commercially possible for human artistry.”

3. The most revealing of the three isn’t a music generator

Hook does not create new tracks, according to the two companies.

Instead, Hook supplies tools for fans to remix, clip, and add effects to official recordings, each licensed, attributed, and tracked. UMG artists and rightsholders decide which songs are available.

“We believe the biggest consumer use case for music creation isn’t making original songs that compete with artists,” said Gaurav Sharma , Founder and CEO of Hook . “It’s about expressing yourself through the artists and songs you love while participating in the communities and culture they inspire.

“We spent the past two years working with UMG ‘s incredible labels and artists to figure out how to make that possible in a way that empowers artists and rightsholders.”

Hook ‘s backers include Waverley Capital , co-founded by Edgar Bronfman Jr. , who the companies note has led two of the world’s largest music companies.

4. UMG’s AI partners are now billion-dollar businesses

The $11 billion valuation came in a $500 million Series D led by Sequoia Capital .

For scale: Warner Music Group ‘s market cap stood at $14.6 billion at the Nasdaq close on September 1 , while MBW puts the enterprise value of the merged BMG and Concord at around $15 billion .

That is not a like-for-like comparison. ElevenLabs ‘ February post-money sits against a September public market cap, and WMG ‘s debt lifts its own enterprise value to about $19 billion .

Suno , which Universal is still suing, reached $5.4 billion in June via its own $400 million Series D.

ElevenLabs faces claims of its own, settling a Delaware voice-cloning suit in November 2025.

An Illinois class action filed on May 11 , one of several naming tech companies, alleges it extracted biometric voiceprints without consent and remains live.

5. UMG’s AI strategy runs from litigation to equity

UMG ‘s AI deals split between fan-facing products and professional tools.

Universal allied with Stability AI in October 2025 to co-develop music creation tools, and Stability ‘s own Stable Audio 3.0 now reaches producers via a digital audio workstation plug-in.

Its 2024 SoundLabs partnership works the same way, giving artists MicDrop , an AI vocal plug-in that builds voice models from an artist’s own voice data, with the artist retaining ownership.

The ElevenLabs deal spans the two, covering the fan platform and products for artists and songwriters.

Launching Stable Audio 3.0 in May, Stability set out the commercial logic for licensing at all: “Artist-centric AI will only win if the product experience on a licensed platform is better than the experience on an unlicensed platform.”

Underneath sits the legal layer. UMG was a plaintiff in the RIAA -coordinated suits against Suno and Udio in June 2024, and its publishing arm was among those that sued Anthropic over song lyrics in 2023.

It settled with Udio in October 2025, taking a compensatory payment plus new licenses, and agreeing to collaborate on a subscription platform where users can customize, stream, and share music in what the two companies called a “licensed and protected environment.”

Then came ownership. In August, Universal joined Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group in a $76 million Series B for Stability AI .

No equivalent stake in ElevenLabs has been disclosed, nor have financial terms or a launch date.

Then, patents. UMG ‘s July 2025 Liquidax Capital partnership produced Music IP Holdings , which in August unveiled more than 24 AI music patents , with another 50 pending.

Its first two licensees are GRAI and Udio – the company UMG sued in 2024.

Separately, Universal has struck AI agreements with attribution company ProRata.ai and KLAY Vision , the latter also licensed by Sony and Warner last November.

Not every AI platform has been embraced.

UMG Recordings , Capitol Records , and Sony Music Entertainment remain plaintiffs against Suno , which admitted in a September 1 filing that it obtained YouTube audio for training while maintaining “fair use”.

Fact discovery closes on September 30 .

Reservoir (Nasdaq: RSVR) is a publicly traded, global independent music company with operations across music publishing, recorded music, and artist management. Music Business Worldwide

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_Originally reported by [Music Business Worldwide](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-elevenlabs-the-umg-ai-partner-with-an-11b-valuation-and-big-ambitions-in-music/)._