New Songs Uploaded: 44% Are AI-Generated. Did the Song You Listened to Yesterday Really Come from a Human?

The numbers released by the music streaming service Deezer are staggering.

44% of newly uploaded songs are generated by AI.

Moreover, the company’s research indicates that 97% of listeners could not distinguish between AI-generated songs and those created by humans. In other words, even if your playlist already contains songs made by AI, you probably wouldn’t notice.

This isn’t just about music. On Reddit, there has been a surge in AI-generated posts, and Amazon’s Kindle Store is flooded with books written by AI. The cost of “creating content” is collapsing, leading to a flood of AI content across all platforms.

The question is simple: When the cost of content approaches zero, what value increases, and what value decreases?

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From 3 Million Yen to 30,000 Yen. What Happens Next?

First, let’s look at the change in cost structure.

Traditionally, producing a song at a professional quality required approximately 1 to 3 million yen for composition, arrangement, recording, mixing, and mastering. Studio fees, engineer costs, and musician salaries all contribute to this labor-intensive expense.

Using AI music generation tools (like Suno and Udio), you can input a prompt and receive a song in just a few minutes. Even with a subscription costing a few thousand yen per month and some adjustment time, the production cost is now under 30,000 yen. That’s one-hundredth of the original cost.

The significance of this “one-hundredth” figure is not just that it’s cheaper; it means that barriers to entry have vanished.

Even those who have never studied music theory or cannot play an instrument can now create songs. In fact, the number of monthly uploads to Deezer has exploded, with the majority being AI-generated or AI-assisted.

The same phenomenon is happening simultaneously across writing, images, videos, and code.

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The Value of ‘Being Able to Create’ Plummets, While the Value of ‘Being Chosen’ Soars

Now we get to the crux of the matter.

As the cost of content production approaches zero, supply explodes. When supply explodes, the “average value” of each piece of content decreases. This is a basic economic principle.

So, what value increases?

The value of ‘reasons for being chosen.’

In a world where a massive number of AI songs are uploaded daily, what reasons do listeners have to choose a particular artist? It’s no longer about “sound quality,” since 97% can’t tell the difference.

The reasons for being chosen will now be:

• Who created it (the human story, context, personality)
• Why it was created (the experiences and emotions behind it)
• Where it was created (regionality, local context)
• Is it trustworthy (track record, consistency, visibility)

In other words, the ‘context’ rather than the ‘content’ will become the differentiating factor.

This is not limited to music. Writing, images, and videos will follow the same structure.

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Is This a Tailwind or a Headwind for Local SMEs?

To conclude, it’s a tailwind, but only for those companies that take action.

Why? There are three reasons.

1. The ‘Physical Challenge’ of Content Creation Ends

Until now, producing a single promotional video for a company would cost 500,000 to 1 million yen when outsourced. Creating images for social media also incurred design costs of several tens of thousands of yen per month. For small and medium-sized enterprises, “mass-producing” content was physically impossible.

With AI tools, promotional videos with background music can be created for just a few thousand yen. Images for social media can be produced in-house using Canva and AI image generation. Now, they can compete on the same level as large corporations in terms of cost.

This isn’t a grand narrative about implementing DX solutions. It’s simply a matter of spending 20,000 to 30,000 yen on tools and having one person in the company learn how to use them.

2. ‘Being Visible’ Becomes the Greatest Weapon

In a world flooded with AI content, ‘who is saying it’ and ‘what kind of person created it’ become critically important.

Local SMEs have this advantage.

You can see the face of the CEO. You can see the hands of the craftsmen. You can see the factory floor. You can see the local scenery. All of these are “contexts” that AI cannot generate.

Even if large corporations in Tokyo produce sophisticated AI-generated content in bulk, they cannot compete with the reality of “this person is making it in this factory in this town.” Being local itself becomes a bulwark against the flood of AI content.

3. ‘Proof that It Was Made by Humans’ Becomes a Brand

Deezer has already begun implementing a system to detect and label AI-generated songs. In the future, it will become standard across all platforms to indicate whether content was generated by AI or created by humans.

When that happens, the label ‘made by humans’ itself will hold brand value.

This is similar to how labels like ‘additive-free’ and ‘handmade’ hold value for handmade food products. We are entering an era where ‘human-made’ certification in content will create price premiums.

When local SMEs communicate about their products or services, elements like “a message written by the CEO,” “photos taken by the craftsmen on-site,” and “background music created by local musicians” will provide clear differentiation from AI content.

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So, What Should We Do?

Specifically, here are three steps.

① First, try creating one piece of content with AI.
Whether it’s for your company’s social media posts or internal materials, it doesn’t matter. Use Suno (for music), ChatGPT (for text), or Canva (for images). You can try these for free or for a few thousand yen per month. You need to experience “what can be done with AI” before making your next decision.

② Separate what to leave to AI and what to do by humans.
BGM, stock images, and templates—these “quantity-demanding and non-personalized items” should be left to AI. On the other hand, messages from the CEO, letters to customers, and product commitments—these “items where context and personality add value” should be created by humans. This separation will be the core of your strategy.

③ Make it clear that it was made by humans.
Show the production process on your company website and social media. Indicate who wrote it and who took the photos. Just doing this will establish differentiation from AI-generated content. It may feel like a given now, but in a year, this will become a clear competitive advantage.

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The ‘Collapse of Content Production Costs’ is a Chance for SMEs to Turn the Tables

With 44% of music being AI-generated, this figure will likely rise even more next year. Writing, images, and videos will follow the same path.

In a world where the cost of content production has collapsed, ‘being able to create’ is no longer a strength. ‘Why it was created’ and ‘who created it’ will become strengths.

And that is something that small and medium-sized enterprises possess overwhelmingly more than large corporations. They have visibility. They have the on-site presence. They have the locality. They have the story.

From 3 million yen to 30,000 yen. The question is whether you can use the saved 2.97 million yen to create ‘reasons for being chosen.’ This is the dividing line.

AI is a tool. When tools become cheaper, it’s not the person with the tools who wins. It’s the person who knows what to create with the tools and why to create it.

Local SMEs have that ‘why.’ Now, all they need to do is take action.