ElevenLabs Launches AI Music Model, Signs Licenses With Merlin & Kobalt: Here’s How It Will Work

On Tuesday (Aug. 5), AI audio company ElevenLabs announced the launch of Eleven Music, an AI model that allows users to create music from written prompts. The resulting songs, which can include vocals and instrumentals, can be employed for commercial uses.

ElevenLabs also announced that it has struck licensing deals with Merlin and Kobalt to train this forthcoming model. As part of the deal, members of Merlin — a digital licensing organization, representing 30,000 independent labels and distributors — and signees of independent publishing giant Kobalt can opt in to allowing their works to be used in AI training in exchange for royalties. For now, the only artists/songwriters eligible to participate are those whose master recordings and publishing copyrights are 100% controlled by Merlin members and Kobalt. Because those creatives must choose to take part in AI training, it’s still unclear which songs will be part of the Eleven Music licensing catalog.

Today, Eleven Music’s first model is available for use, but a source tells Billboard that the Eleven Music Pro model, which will be trained on those Merlin and Kobalt rights holders who opt in, is expected to debut in the coming weeks or months.

This isn’t the first time ElevenLabs has struck a licensing deal with a music company for its new model. ElevenLabs has already signed deals with Landr, an AI-focused music production and distribution platform, and SourceAudio, a synchronization licensing platform that hosts millions of songs, including production music and licensed works from indie labels.

According to an email to Kobalt signees obtained by Billboard, “the basic concept” of the new Eleven Music model is “to help power a scalable, AI-driven production music library that creates custom audio for studios, brands and creators. It’s not meant to replace traditional uses of [one’s] repertoire, but to add value alongside them.” Use cases for the Eleven Music model are listed as “background music for brands, agencies and studios,” “novelty songs” and “UGC-safe content for social platforms.”

Some music generated by Eleven Music is permitted on streaming services, but it depends on what subscription tier the user has signed up for. There are seven such tiers of Eleven Music: Free, Starter, Creator, Pro, Scale, Business and Enterprise. Under the Free, Starter and Enterprise plans, distribution to streaming services of any music generated by the model is prohibited.

Kobalt’s deal with ElevenLabs has a worldwide remit and the term lasts for two years. Participants will receive a “pro-rata share of a royalty pool based on how many of [the artist/songwriters’] works were used to train the [Eleven Music] model relative to others.” A source close to the deal explains that this means participating artists/writers will receive royalties relative to how many songs they represent in the overall dataset.

The results are then “weighted using digital proxies,” which the source says means that the royalty payouts don’t just take into account how many songs one has in the dataset — it also accounts for the popularity of those songs, determined by looking at their metrics on other digital platforms. The source declined to specify exactly what Kobalt’s “digital proxies” were.

Kobalt’s email also notes that there are safeguards in place with the Eleven Music model, including:

For music publishers, the inclusion of the MFN clause in Kobalt’s deal is particularly notable. With that stipulation, Kobalt has ensured that their copyrights are going to be valued equally to those of any label or publisher that strikes a deal with ElevenLabs. Historically, publishers and songwriters have often earned a lesser royalty rate than that enjoyed by record labels and artists, and as chatter around AI licensing has grown, David Israelite, president/CEO of National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), has been outspoken about how AI could be a new opportunity for publishers to set equal licensing rates. “I believe the most important principle is that the song is just as valuable, if not more, than the sound recording in the AI model,” Israelite told a room of indie publishers at the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) meeting in April 2025.

Less is known about the nature of Merlin’s specific deal with Eleven Music, although a source says that Merlin’s contains similar safeguards and a similar remuneration structure to Kobalt’s. All of Merlin’s deals operate on an opt-in basis.

Kobalt did not respond to Billboard‘s request for comment. ElevenLabs replied, pointing to the company’s press release and blog post about the subject. Merlin replied with a statement from its CEO, Jeremy Sirota: “The consents, compensation, and guardrails we built into this partnership — in strong collaboration with ElevenLabs — all reflect our mission to ensure artists’ work is respected, appropriately valued, and protected.”

In an interview with Bloomberg Live on Tuesday morning (Aug. 5), ElevenLabs CEO/co-founder Mati Staniszewski dodged a question about whether or not the company was also in licensing talks with the three major music companies — Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group — saying only that “currently the focus was on bringing the current model and product to the market. So really, we’re deep with our partners — with Merlin, Kobalt, Source Audio and a number of other partners that aren’t mentioned in the release — to bring the current product to the market, iterate, we will see whether we can expand.”

At another point in the interview, Staniszewski said: “Of course, as we look into the future, we would love to work with UMG, WMG, Sony, and I hope we find a path in the future to do so. As we think about our work across Eleven Music, that’s one of the key elements: to make sure that the work we do is both licensed, but also gives you that broad commercial license to use it.”

The press release about the launch of Eleven Music also included statements of support from Staniszewski, Sirota and Laurent Hubert (CEO of Kobalt). They are listed below:

“As an AI audio company, expanding into music was a natural progression, and we are thrilled to introduce Eleven Music today,” said Staniszewski. “We’ve heard massive demand from our enterprise partners and users for a music model like this and we took our time to ship one that we’re certain they’ll love. We’re proud to do so in collaboration with music industry partners who recognize the vast benefits and possibilities of AI innovation in music.”

“We are excited to partner with ElevenLabs,” said Sirota. “As we navigate the transformative yet challenging opportunities that AI presents, it is core to Merlin’s mission that we work with partners who respect the extraordinary cultural contribution of our members, their artists and their music. We will be very deliberate about who we work with and have been in conversations with many companies in this space. Our partnership with ElevenLabs demonstrates that music rightsholders can negotiate thoughtful, forward-looking agreements with AI companies. Together, we have created responsible guardrails that showcase how AI companies and music rightsholders can collaborate. We look forward to sharing further announcements as we work together towards the launch of Eleven Music Pro.”

Hubert added, “Our songwriters and clients entrust us to ensure that the AI revolution includes both strong protections for their intellectual property rights for AI training, as well as forward-looking and thoughtful opportunities to participate in AI revenue streams, subject to clear and fair guardrails. ElevenLabs has been a collaborative partner, committed to sourcing data directly from rightsholders and protecting them. We are excited about this partnership and seeing ElevenLabs become a pioneer in licensing premium music for their Music Pro offering. Kobalt looks forward to working with our songwriters and partners who wish to be part of this opportunity with ElevenLabs.”