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Michael Whalen

Things Michael Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Michael Whalen has been a guest on Mac Power Users (2 times) .

Recently: “871: AI Can't Fake Taste with Emmy-Winning Composer Michael Whalen” on Mac Power Users (October 2026); “369: Workflows with Composer Michael Whalen” on Mac Power Users (March 2017).

What They Said

“The AI music thing is weird in as much as that there's a front end for it, but there's no back end for it. There's no audience that's waiting on the other side going, oh my goodness, I can't wait to listen to this AI music. Because what's happening is you have all these kids running around with Suno on their phones and they're all going to their friends going, hey, look what I did… End of conversation.” — Michael Whalen, Mac Power Users

Asked how professional musicians feel about AI-generated tracks on streaming services, the film and TV composer predicts two separate music economies. He expects the major labels to wall AI music off in its own sandbox to protect the royalty streams they've built their finances on.

Mac Power Users · 2026-10-18 Permalink → Listen →
Mac Power Users Around 40:39 into the episode
Michael Whalen

100%.

Stephen Robles

…so people know it's AI. But there's also a segment of people that, I mean, AI artists that have like thousands of listeners a month, sometimes millions of listeners. What is their response to that? Like, are we just like, okay with this? Is this like, how does that feel from your perspective?

Michael Whalen

…micropayments, you know, for plays that we've had for a long time because the labels have built their entire financial structure around the consistency of those payments. They have really, really turned those into an annuity. And the idea that something like AI music is going to come along and dilute the royalty pool makes them mad, like you cannot believe. So that's number one. Number two, the AI music thing is weird in as much as that there's a front end for it, but there's no back end for it. There's no audience that's waiting on the other side going, oh my goodness, I can't wait to listen to this AI music. Because what's happening is you have all these kids running around with Suno on their phones and they're all going to their friends going, hey, look what I did. Sure. End of conversation. So is there a business there or is there a front end for this being sort of like a novelty or a toy or that kind of thing? So I think what's going to happen is that Suno for professional musicians is going to be a way of demoing tracks, maybe a way of doing like, you know, some arrangements or something like that. But you're going to have to go through an enormous…

Stephen Robles

This episode of Mac Power Users is brought to you by Workbrew. The best tool for the job wasn't procured. It was installed straight from the internet onto a work machine. And most IT teams don't know about the homebrew install, the NPM packages, the editor. Extensions or the app someone downloaded…

David Sparks

All right. So, Michael, you teased us earlier that you're doing some film production now, and this is where AI is stepping in and roll for you. So, tell us, what are you doing?

Michael Whalen

So, I have a company called Artist Expansion, where I work with recording artists and I do marketing with them. I do social media with them. We talk about branding. We talk about all kinds of different things. And I have made in the last 10 years hundreds of music videos and behind the scenes…

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