Are you sure that the music you’re listening to in your headphones right now was created by a human and not an artificial intelligence?
When Svyatoslav Vakarchuk tweeted in 2021 that his hit song “I’m not here without you” was made by an AI, supposedly having listened to all the songs of Okean Elzy beforehand – it was just a joke. Back then, it was technically possible, but it would have sounded pretty awkward.
But things have changed dramatically in 2025, and now AI-generated hits are more commonplace, though we often don’t notice it.
It’s hard to distinguish which music is real and which isn’t.
Research shows that 97% of listeners cannot do this. The problem exists not only in Ukraine, but all over the world.
Because of this, real artists begin to worry about their future, and some, like Paul McCartney, even sharply oppose what is written and performed by artificial intelligence.
So how can we tell the difference between artificial music and real music, why do we like AI songs so much, and can it really cause problems?
What popular tracks in Ukraine were created by artificial intelligence
What songs created by artificial intelligence do Ukrainians listen to?
Usually it is club music with folk notes, or something patriotic, like poems put to music, by Vasyl Stus, Pavlo Tychyna, Lesya Ukrainka, sung by Stus, Tychyna or Lesya Ukrainka.
“The fog dances slowly on the ground” or “Carpathian sound in the silence early – the fog rises into the clouds…” – probably one of the biggest artificial hits in Ukraine today.
This song first appeared on YouTube on the page of Y.
K.
Music six months ago and has over 17 million views.
In the comments, as is often the case under others.
.
The title suggests that the label is probably Georgian. But there is no exact information about the country of origin, while the vast majority of songs released on Tbilisi Records are Russian-language.
Because of this, some listeners and artists have concerns that some songs, although sung in Ukrainian, may actually have been created by Russians, many of whom are living in Georgia during the war. And songs that have millions of views on YouTube can fetch thousands of dollars.
BBC News Ukraine tried to get a comment from Tbilisi Records by emailing them at the email address listed on YouTube a few weeks before this article was published, but received no response.
There are more sophisticated ways of using AI to create tracks. Such was the case with Ukrainian rapper Marshroot.
Under this nickname hides a real artist – Mikhail nGL.media. In September, the charts already had 14% of such songs.
Why do people listen to artificial music, and does this say something about the quality of the Ukrainian music industry?
In fact, says musician and music reviewer Albert Tsukrenko, tracks created by AI are “not very different from other tracks popular in Ukraine and made by real musicians.”
Artificial intelligence doesn’t come up with a new genre or style that everyone suddenly buys into – it just picks out something average from the hits on the radio and in the charts. When there is a task to make a hit, it is a simple tool to make some example out of a hundred thousand hits that will sound in the trend, – explains Tsukrenko.
The musician says that he personally likes to listen to indie and underground, and there AI has not yet taken root so much, it is often more original music. to educate the taste of the Ukrainian listener so that he does not buy completely artificial songs.
Many AI tracks popular in Ukraine are reminiscent of old-fashioned board songs, to which it is fun to dance with friends somewhere in a gendelike place. Ukraine has long had such a layer of music, Nagornyak says.
“When in the 90s there was nothing to listen to, the Ukrainian scene was not formed and there was no “Territory A”, there were people who were conventionally called labuhi. They sang folk songs familiar to people in primitive arrangements,” says the expert.
Labuhi performed in bars, restaurants and at weddings. They didn’t necessarily have a musical education, but more often than not they had good voices or just a good sense of music.
And while there have been many diverse, quality artists in Ukraine since then, in some villages and towns, says Nagoryak, barely fluttering red hair , – this rousing, energetic track could well be imagined on some dance floor in a nightclub.
The promo song depicts a girl in a sexy look and embroidery. And while I realise that it’s just an AI-generated image to attract attention, I’m still a little confused by the fact that there’s a human behind its creation.
On the phone, he introduces himself to me as 36-year-old Vadim Ivanyuk from Poltava.
“Yes, it’s about clickability,” he tells me about the promo for the song.” But I also have my limits.”
He creates songs on Suno. The popular AI app generates tracks as close to studio quality as possible.
To create a song, you need to tell Suno what the style should be, what the timbre should be, male or female vocals. Then – specify the lyrics, select the music and edit I write them myself and put a lot of my feelings and emotions there,” he tells BBC News Ukraine. – Neural network helps me to learn: it tells me where there may be mistakes, how to better build a line or rhythm. It’s like an assistant and a coach for me at the same time”.
Vadim says he has earned “a little” from the popularity of Native Eyes, for him it’s more of a hobby.
The creativity, he says, is inspired by the fact that it is “someone else’s need,” that listeners write that they “listen to my music on repeat.” These songs are popular, he explains, because “people want simple, emotional and vital lyrics, they want to hear something close to them.”
Those who say that there is “no emotion and soul” in music created with AI are “very wrong,” says Vadim.
“What matters is who is driving the process,” he believes.
Confusion with Orsk’s auth right and “Russian” follows
Many believe that YouTube, Spotify and other platforms have to fight AI, and the efforts they are making are not enough.
Platforms are asking creators to voluntarily label content as AI, block monetisation on profiles that clearly fall under AI traits, and those songs are still growing. Not just “original” AI tracks, but remixes of them.
Dancefloor AI creator Vadim Ivanyuk says he spends a lot of his time not on music, but on fighting piracy.
He says his AI-created tracks are often published on various pages and SoundCloud without permission. And the worst thing, he says, is that “many people hide behind patriotism”, meaning they distribute songs under the slogans of popularising Ukrainian content, “but in reality they just steal”.
“Buy an iPhone, go to a water restaurant.” On the BBC News Ukraine network, she found information that someone sings under the pseudonym Aktorka, but the voice resembles artificial intelligence, there is no photo, and a profile with such a name is difficult to find on any platform.
It could be a copy of the song “Basic Minimum” by real Russian singer Mia Boyko, Vadim says.
In the Content ID system, which works for content rightsholders, music identical to the original, Vadim explains, is automatically linked to the rightsholder of the original track, so monetisation goes to him – even if the version is adapted in Ukrainian.
Therefore, for every video where Ukrainian women dance to the Ukrainian version of the song, Tik-Tok throws users to the Russian singer’s page.
“That is, even if the track sounds Ukrainian, the money from TikTok, YouTube, YouTube and other social networks goes to Russia,” explains Vadim Ivanyuk.
As in every video where Ukrainian women dance to the Ukrainian version of the song, Tik-Tok throws users to the page of the Russian singer.
That is, even if the track sounds Ukrainian, the money from TikTok, YouTube, YouTube and other social networks goes to Russia,” explains Vadim Ivanyuk.
Student intelligence is developing rapidly, becoming smarter and more accurate. He can make Michael Jackson sing Red Mouth – and it will be Jackson’s voice and timbre with all the nuances,” vocal teacher Ulyana Golina tells BBC News Ukraine.
Sometimes, says Albert Tsukrenko, ears do come out, by which you can distinguish artificial intelligence from real – to hear a strange train, various bugs, voice processing.
And sometimes it’s just a case that solves everything.
In August, the Ukrainian-speaking post-punk band Transportna, popular in certain circles, posted a song on YouTube called Like in the Movies, where at 3:21 minutes a voice is heard singing the following words: The sound is somewhat amplified and gradually absorbs the music, being left to sound alone for another round a few seconds before abruptly cutting off.
Perhaps it’s just a creative move, but as listeners have pointed out, the lyric the band left under the video lacks these machine-like lines.
Author photo, Youtube Transportna screen
The band wrote in a YouTube post that they are live people who write their own lyrics but use music software to create sound, voice processing and arrangements.
In their songs, you can often hear wrong accents, lack of rhymes, and the artists themselves only communicate with fans in writing, turning down gigs – all signs, experts say, that most often point to AI.
While the lack of rhyme and proper accents can be explained in different ways, in the case of the band Transportna it is the alleged Lithuanian origin of the artists as they write about themselves.
To distinguish between artificial intelligence and real intelligence, experts say, most often point to AI. its development, it’s still pretty flat. Maybe I’m just an attentive listener, or maybe it’s because I’m a professional musician, but I can hear that robotic voice.
A new era of technology
But is the popularity of AI really a problem?
Some people listen to one thing, some people listen to another.
“If you’re listening to music in the background, you probably don’t care what you’re playing at all,” says Uliana Golinei.
The popularity of AI is definitely a problem for those “who care about art, culture, ethics” and for artists who put money and effort into their work, she explains, and at the end of their views and popularity, artificial intelligence bypasses them.
Some Ukrainian artists feel “background stress” from the uncertainty of what’s next for them, explains Albert Tsukrenko.
But younger performers are less fatalistic about AI, he adds. In his opinion, artists who “have some value behind them” will continue to pick up gigs.
After all, their AI competitors aren’t doing gigs.
Nagoryak recalls how they used to think it was strange to play a synthesiser because it gave a new, dense sound. But now it doesn’t surprise anyone.
We’ve just entered a new era of technology,” he adds. – Composers were – there were music producers, and now there will be AI composers, talent will still win .
Tsukrenko believes that soon there will be morevirtual puppets in the world of music , but people are interested in everything human, their jokes and jokes .
When production and many other processes are accelerated and music becomes artificial, the world becomes as if plastic, and “on the contrary, you want to touch something cool and hear imperfections,” describes her feelings musician Ulyana Golinei.
“I want to know,” she says, “that someone covered this table with varnish, someone knitted this jumper, and someone wrote this song and sings it in their own living voice.