By Lisa Richwine and Rollo Ross

And the award goes to … AI music.

The first AI Music Awards ceremony in the US on Friday celebrated the people who created songs at least partly with AI, a field that has sparked criticism and lawsuits while also gaining millions of streams and landing on music charts.

At Friday’s event in downtown Los Angeles, human presenters and winners argued that artificial intelligence-created music should be viewed as part of a new genre that requires real-life artistry as well as hours of prompting to get the right sound.

“In a world where everybody calls AI fake, the human behind it is real,” said music producer Drake Murphy as he presented the award for best AI hip-hop song.

The night’s top awards of AI artist, song and album of the year went to Xania Monet, an AI-generated avatar known for “How Was I Supposed to Know?” Billboard said the R&B song was the first by an AI-based act to earn a spot on one of its radio charts.

Monet was created by Telisha “Nikki” Jones, who said she wrote all of the lyrics and then set them to music with the help of AI.

“I just feel like AI music is a new thing that people just have to get used to,” Jones said on the red carpet before the ceremony. “I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon.”

AI artists who are members of the Sonic Intelligence Academy, a company that created AI music charts and tools to identify songs made with AI, chose the winners.

Artists tout AI as creative tool despite backlash

While the presence of AI in music-making can be traced back to the 1950s, groundbreaking advances in generative AI, with robots now making music as digital pop stars, have divided opinions in the industry.

Record labels have sued AI companies including Anthropic and OpenAI, arguing that they are illegally using copyrighted works to train their models. The Elvis Presley estate also filed a lawsuit.

The companies have said they are protected by the “fair use” doctrine in US copyright law that allows unlicensed use in some cases.

Musicians worry that AI-generated music blocks human artists from gaining traction and takes work from producers, singers, engineers and songwriters.

Many of Friday’s nominees said they had stories to tell but did not have all of the skills needed to put them to music. They said AI was a tool that helped bring the music to life and they hoped the awards would show people there are humans behind AI music.

“A lot of things we do behind the scenes is hard work, contrary to popular belief,” said nominee J. Frequency. “Art is art, and I think this is just another expression of that.”