Warner Music Group has agreed to acquire Sureel AI.
Sureel is the attribution startup whose technology tracks how AI models use artists’ work in training and generation.
The acquisition “advances WMG’s mission to ensure that artists, songwriters, and rightsholders benefit wherever and whenever their work is referenced in AI-generated works or in the training of AI models,” according to the company.
Warner Music Group and Sureel announced the agreement on Wednesday (June 10).
According to WMG, Sureel’s multi-patented technology creates “AI DNA” for every work, breaking it into component parts and tracing how AI models use those elements.
The press release added that “Sureel also delivers intellectual property provenance, audit and compliance reporting, model optimization, AI business intelligence, and a growing NIL (name, image, and likeness) attribution suite that tracks how artist voices, likenesses, and performance identities are used in AI training and generation — including voice clones, AI-generated avatars, and style replication.”
The Sureel registry holds millions of music assets, according to WMG, “with the architecture to extend its multi-layer attribution into video and image at scale”.
Sureel will continue to operate as a standalone platform serving the broader music and AI ecosystem, the company said.
Robert Kyncl, Chief Executive Officer, Warner Music Group, said: “AI powers a large fan engagement and value creation opportunity for our industry, while making the human provenance of music more important than ever.”
“AI POWERS A LARGE FAN ENGAGEMENT AND VALUE CREATION OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR INDUSTRY, WHILE MAKING THE HUMAN PROVENANCE OF MUSIC MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER.”u003cbru003e
“RIGHTSHOLDERS DESERVE TO KNOW HOW AI INTERACTS WITH THEIR WORK, AND TO SHARE FAIRLY IN THE VALUE IT CREATES.”u003cbru003e
Dr. Tamay Aykut, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Sureel AI, added: “Rightsholders deserve to know how AI interacts with their work, and to share fairly in the value it creates.
“Sureel was built to make that possible, and with WMG’s backing, we can deliver on our mission at scale, building a more transparent and fair future and driving value growth for the whole music and entertainment ecosystem.”
Sureel, founded by Aykut, a former visiting assistant professor at Stanford, has built its business around attribution technology that lets rightsholders track how their catalogs are used by AI systems.
In September 2025, Sweden’s STIM named Sureel its “preferred attribution provider” for what the rights society called the world’s first collective AI license for music.
The startup also partnered with marketplace BeatStars in April 2025 to block unauthorized AI systems from training on its catalog of beats and songs.
The acquisition is the latest in a run of AI dealmaking for WMG.
In November 2025, Warner Music Group struck a licensing deal with AI music generator Suno and settled its copyright lawsuit against the company.
WMG also settled its lawsuit with Udio and struck a licensing deal with the company for a ‘next-generation’ AI music platform coming in 2026.
The deal announced today marks the latest acquisition for WMG. In April 2026, WMG also agreed to buy Revelator, the B2B music platform that handles distribution, rights management, and royalty accounting for independent labels.
