ISLAMABAD  –  Artificial intelligence has quietly redrawn the boundaries of creativity, entering fields once thought to belong only to human talent and creativity. From graphic design and photography to writing and video production, tasks that once depended on human skill and imagination are now being completed by AI tools within minutes, and music has been among the most affected. For many musicians, AI is not just changing how music is made; it is killing the very skills they spent their entire lives mastering, as tools now produce in seconds what took them years of practice to learn.  Across Pakistan’s music industry, work that once required live instrumentalists, studio time and a team of professionals is increasingly being done through AI, quickly and at a fraction of the cost. For musicians whose only source of income is music, this shift is haunting their years-long musical journeys and leaving their future livelihoods uncertain. Renowned flutist Salman Adil said that AI has already produced “Pasoori” in the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a song he never sang. Musicians once assumed traditional acoustic instruments like the tabla, flute and sitar would be difficult for AI, but it is now creating music with their sounds as well.  Instead of playing an instrument, he explains, AI learns from existing music and uses those elements to produce something new. Referring to a firsthand experience, he said that a regular client who used to pay him Rs. 5000-10,000 per flute track stopped hiring him. And when asked the reason, the client said they had shifted to AI, where a subscription of around 5000 rupees gave them music, including flute, for several songs. Renowned Tabla artist Qamar Babar describes the same shift. “We are people who play live music and live instruments, but because of AI our opportunities have become very limited,” he says.  He was once regularly called for recordings, but for much of that work, musicians are no longer called at all. “Where a live musician was needed before, people now try to get the work done through AI.” He said that the entire chain of recording work has been affected. While he acknowledges that AI has made many tasks easier, he calls it a very damaging change for live musicians. “We are genuinely worried about where things will go and how much work will remain for people like us. Right now it is difficult to understand how our work will move forward with AI.”  Prominent Music Producer and Composer, Jibran Rafiq explains why the shift happened so quickly.Most singers in Pakistan do not have large production budgets, and AI offers a cheaper and faster option.  Earlier, a song meant hiring musicians, booking a studio, and paying a producer and other professionals. In Saraiki music, for example, a basic production costs around 25,000 to 30,000 rupees. He notes that Saraiki music has its own distinct style that AI has not yet fully replicated, so the impact there has been somewhat different. For musicians, however, the decline is clear. “Some musicians used to record two to four songs in a day. Now that has come down to two, three or four songs a week,” he says, adding that this directly hits their income. Studios are also feeling the impact. People who once paid separately for mixing and proper mastering now rely on AI-based mastering. According to Jibran, many singers do not fully know what good mastering sounds like, so they accept whatever AI produces, assuming it must be good. He warns that the short-term savings could, in the long run, affect artists’ own creative skills, musicians’ livelihoods and the wider music market. Yet both Jibran and Salman see early signs that listeners may return to human musicians. Jibran says much of the AI-produced music began to sound alike and people started getting bored. Platforms, he adds, are also responding to AI-generated content in different ways. “This was a trend that came very fast, but now its graph is coming down,” he says, as attention shifts back to originality and the human touch. Salman agrees that AI cannot recreate the experience of live music, where people sit together and find a deep and soulful connection with the music.

He recently heard an AI-generated qawwali and found it highly artificial and far from original.  Referring to another case, he said that a client who had used AI for a flute part sent it back to him and asked him to replay it with a human feel.

Matching the machine’s precision was difficult, he says, but the client liked the result. The shift has also created a new burden for artists: proving their work is real. Music director Akash Sonu visited Salman’s studio to film a flute recording so he could show his own client that it was performed by a human and not generated by AI.  Salman said that artists may increasingly have to prove that their work is genuinely their own.

He sums up the situation in one line: “AI is killing skill, but there is no substitute for the human vibe.”

Until that human vibe is valued again in the market, musicians who depend entirely on recording work will remain uncertain about what comes next.