The year in AI and culture : NPR

DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:

As 2025 draws to a close, it’s safe to say generative AI came out of its novelty phase and fully entered the cultural mainstream. Here to talk about a few of the many standout AI cultural moments of the past 12 months is NPR’s Chloe Veltman. Hey, Chloe.

CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: Hi there, Daniel.

ESTRIN: Gosh. Where do we even begin?

VELTMAN: Well, how about Tilly Norwood?

ESTRIN: Tilly Norwood, yeah. She’s a hyper-realistic actress, AI-generated. She’s got an English accent. Her creator compared her to Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. Is that the Tilly we’re talking about?

VELTMAN: Yeah, the very same. Here Tilly is in a social media clip.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

AI-GENERATED VOICE #1: (As Tilly Norwood) Hi, I’m Tilly Norwood, the world’s first AI actor. Delighted to meet you.

ESTRIN: Yeah, that was a big story. Remind us of the details.

VELTMAN: So Tilly Norwood has mostly so far just given these short, solo speeches like this one on social media. It’s not like she’s appeared in movies yet or anything, but the AI’s mere existence prompted major backlash in the fall.

ESTRIN: What happened?

VELTMAN: Actors had concerns about losing work to the likes of Tilly. The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA issued a statement condemning it. The London-based studio behind Tilly Norwood, Particle6, has defended its creation, though, saying it will not replace human performers.

ESTRIN: AI-generated art also made an impact beyond screens, right?

VELTMAN: One hundred percent, Daniel. In music, massive listenership for AI-generated songs proved that algorithms, not only human artistic souls, can create hits.

ESTRIN: So play us an example.

VELTMAN: Sure. In November, a song by an AI-generated country artist called Breaking Rust – “Walk My Walk” – got a ton of attention. Let’s hear a clip.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WALK MY WALK”)

AI-GENERATED VOICE #2: (As Breaking Rust, singing) You can kick rocks if you don’t like how I talk. I’m gonna keep on talking and walk my walk.

ESTRIN: (Laughter) OK. You can kick rocks. I don’t know about the lyrics, but are people actually listening to this?

VELTMAN: A lot of people, actually, Daniel. This synthetic song has been downloaded more than 10 million times on Spotify at this point. A November Billboard article stated that at least six AI or AI-assisted artists debuted on its various charts with songs encompassing an array of genres such as gospel, country and rock.

ESTRIN: Wow. What is or who is behind all this AI music?

VELTMAN: Well, mostly it’s AI music creation platforms like Suno and Udio, maybe some human involvement. But it’s become harder than ever to tell what’s human and what’s not.

ESTRIN: So what is the impact on human artists and the entertainment industry with all this AI-generated stuff?

VELTMAN: We’ve seen even more lawsuits with artists and entertainment corporations alleging tech companies use their works without permission or compensation to train their tools. However, 2025 also saw a big shift with media giants settling legal battles to strike deals with AI companies. And the goal of these deals is to create new revenue streams for artists and corporations through the legal licensing of their works.

ESTRIN: What would that look like?

VELTMAN: Well, I’ll give you a couple of examples. Universal Music Group and AI music platform Udio say they are going to launch a subscription service together in 2026. Users are going to be able to customize, stream and share licensed music on Udio’s platform, and Disney announced it would invest $1 billion in OpenAI. The Mouse House will license many of its characters, including from the Marvel and Pixar universes, for users to create videos with OpenAI’s Sora, and we’ll just see what other deals emerge in 2026 as media giants embrace AI’s commercial and creative potential.

ESTRIN: And we embrace NPR’s real, live human, Chloe Veltman. Thanks, Chloe.

VELTMAN: Thanks, Daniel.

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