Audio Engineer & Podcaster Bobby Owsinski’s 2026 Music Predictions
Hypebot’s Future Predictions series is back. Join us as we ask the music industry’s expert analysts what they think might unfold in the world of music in 2026.
Bobby Owsinski is a renowned American audio engineer, producer, educator, and bestselling author known for his foundational books on music production, like The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, widely used in colleges. A music industry veteran, he’s produced records, pioneered surround sound mixing with major artists (The Who, Neil Young, Chicago), runs the popular music blog, Music 3.0, hosts podcasts, creates online courses, and writes for Forbes on music business trends, making him a key figure in modern audio education and production.
We asked Bobby if he had any predictions for the music industry in 2026. Here’s what he had to say:
“I predict that TikTok will not be sold to an American consortium as we’ve been led to believe, and the company will be forced to abandon operations in the United States as a result of the law that was passed by the U.S. Congress at the end of 2024. TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is its secret sauce, and if you take notice, it’s never mentioned as being included in any deal. In fact, you never hear any information coming from the Chinese side, only from various American sources, which leads one to believe that the owners of Bytedance are not serious about the deal and would rather lose operation in the U.S. instead of giving up the algorithm.
“I predict that the major labels (with maybe the exception of Sony) will face tremendous pushback from their artists over the deals they’ve done with AI music generators in 2025. The artists will feel that these deals were not done with their best interests in mind (no surprise there), and that any revenue generated from this source will be tiny compared to their potential loses. As a result, new artists will be reluctant to sign with a major, instead signing with large indie labels, or even new startups created specifically to promote human over AI music. This will push the major labels into becoming catalog curators, something they’ve been moving towards anyway.
“As a result of all the AI slop music that’s beginning to overwhelm the streaming services, human music makers (especially bands) will come back in vogue. In order for musicians to ensure that people can tell the difference between their music and what’s AI-generated, it will become popular for performances and recordings to be as raw as possible, even going so far as to leave mistakes in recordings as a human signature.
“More small and boutique musical instrument and audio manufacturers will be purchased by existing holding companies or private equity groups. This will happen because of a combination of a tougher business environment due to tariffs, costs, and a dwindling dealer network, and founders wishing to cash out and retire. The result will be fewer brands and more businesses shifting to online sales.”
