Spotify's AI will remix your favorite songs now. UMG is first to say sure.

Spotify and Universal Music Group just announced a licensing deal that will let you prompt AI-generated remixes and covers of streaming songs. It's a paid add-on for Premium subscribers. Artists can opt out. Those who don't will collect royalties from whatever the AI produces.

This is the first visible product from a partnership Spotify announced in October involving UMG, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, and Believe — a broad coalition that agreed to build "responsible AI products" without ever defining what that meant. Now at least one thing it means is: a paying subscriber can ask an AI to remix a song and the original artist gets a check.

The question of what "remix" means when the remixer has never held an instrument remains open. But at least it's licensed.