60% of Producers Already Use AI — The Survey Nobody's Talking About

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Sonarworks just published a survey of over 1,100 music producers. The headline? 60% are already using AI as an ideation tool, and 30% use it as a full co-producer.

Let that sink in. We're past the debate. The majority of producers have already decided.

What They're Actually Doing

Forget the dystopian narrative. Producers aren't using AI to replace themselves. They're using it for the stuff that eats time without adding creativity:

  • Generating starting points — melodies, chord progressions, arrangement ideas. Not to use as-is, but as a springboard
  • Audio cleanup — removing noise, fixing recordings, polishing demos
  • Mix balancing — getting a rough mix to a decent starting point faster
  • Stem separation — pulling apart reference tracks or remixing material

The boring stuff. The technical heavy lifting. The tasks where AI is genuinely better and faster than humans.

The 30% Co-Producer Number

This is the interesting one. Nearly a third of producers actively integrate AI suggestions into their final work. Not as a gimmick — as part of their actual workflow.

I'm in this group. When I built Stepista, the whole point was to have an AI that understands music theory generate MIDI patterns I can then shape, edit, and make mine. The AI proposes, I dispose. That's co-production.

And honestly? It's made me more productive without making my music less personal. If anything, it pushes me into territory I wouldn't explore on my own.

The Skills That Matter Now

The survey also revealed something important: manual audio editing, routine mix balancing, and transcription are becoming less central to the professional skill set. Those are the tasks AI handles well.

What's becoming more important? Creative vision. Taste. The ability to curate, direct, and make decisions that an algorithm can't make for you.

Sound familiar? It's the same shift that happened when DAWs replaced tape machines. The technical barrier dropped, but the creative bar didn't move.

The Bottom Line

60% adoption means AI in music production isn't a trend — it's infrastructure. The question is no longer "should I use AI?" It's "how am I using it to make better music?"

If you're in the other 40%, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. But I'd encourage you to try. Not to replace what you do — to amplify it.