K-pop has an AI problem

Last December, a K-pop trio named GLXE (pronounced ‘galaxy’) debuted without any of the hallmarks of idol marketing. Gone were the lavish photoshoots and orchestrated teasers: the three male singers simply appeared on TikTok, ready-packaged with epic musical build-ups and cinematic punches. 

It only takes a moment to realise GLXE are generative AI, albeit impressively rendered. But it takes longer to clock that their voices and songs are also entirely AI, made with Suno, a generative music platform with two million paid subscribers. Trained on millions of songs and capable of spitting out a full track via a few text prompts, Suno is currently embroiled in a spate of multi-million dollar lawsuits with the world’s biggest music labels over copyright infringement. 

Still, GLXE are following the K-pop playbook to a tee: a fandom name (Stars), dance challenges, several albums in quick succession, listening parties, and livestreams. Their fandom, which is small yet growing, do not care about the increasingly loud criticism of AI in K-pop: “Thank you for giving us three wonderful people whose voices convey the most beautiful feelings,” writes one fan under a TikTok featuring the silvery-grey haired virtual singer Manilla. “Thank you for creating songs that say so much, and melodies that invite us to dream.” 

Among K-pop fans more widely, however, dissent against AI is mounting. The technology first became part of K-pop’s lexicon via groups like aespa, who debuted in 2020 with their (human-designed) virtual avatars (also referred to as AI counterparts), and MAVE:, who used AI to communicate in multiple languages. But where these acts were once symbols of forward-thinking creativity, with the introduction of Supertone’s short-lived AI girl group Syndi8 in 2024 and the increase of AI wannabe-idols like GLXE this year, ‘AI’ has increasingly become fandom shorthand for LLMs and generative AI, a symbol of a world on fire, late stage capitalism, climate crisis, and a death knell for creativity. 

“It sparks serious concerns about authorship and authenticity,” Hyd, one fifth of popular fan account ENHYPEN ASIA, tells Dazed. “As fans, we do not simply consume finished songs or performances, we witness the years of training, discipline, and exhaustion. That’s why AI sparks serious concerns about authorship and authenticity.”

K-pop and tech have always gone hand-in-hand; there’s a direct correlation between the rise of K-pop in the West to the ubiquitous adoption of social media, digital music platforms, and livestreaming in the 2010s, and the industry was quick to jump on NFTs and blockchain in 2022. In 2023, HYBE chairman Bang Shi-Huk, one of K-pop’s most powerful figures, told Billboard that he has “long doubted that the entities that create and produce music will remain human.” 

Since then, South Korea – whose modern economic success is intrinsically tied to technology – has become hooked on generative AI. Last year it was the biggest consumer worldwide of AI slop videos, and in January 2026, the AI Basic Act was passed in an attempt to curb misuse and protect consumers. In a 2025 South Korean survey, 70 per cent of people believed AI would have a positive effect on society. It’s no surprise, then, that K-pop industry execs seem to share this belief. 

Even famed creatives, like video director Rima Yoon and NewJeans’ former CEO and creative director Min Hee-jin, have publicly embraced AI. JYP subsidiary Blue Garage claims to be “creating a new kind of IP using AI technology”, SM Entertainment’s co-CEO Daniel Jang announced plans to use AI within their A&R systems, and, in September of last year, the label released a fully AI generated video for aespa’s “Rich Man (Yellow Claw Remix)”. Two months later, in December 2025, Galaxy Corporation CEO Choi Yong-ho declared that generative AI in K-pop music videos, at least, is now the new normal: "Most music videos will be created by artificial intelligence except for lead singles. Costs will come down, and efficiency will go up."

For many K-pop fans, however, the problem isn't just that generative AI is being utilised but that companies are doing so with little transparency. Dr. Sarah Keith, a senior lecturer in music and media at Sydney’s Macquarie University and who has written extensively on fandoms, points to a Reddit post within the K-pop community about an AI video effects artist who claimed to have worked on countless K-pop videos where AI use was not disclosed. “K-pop fans want to make sure that artists are not exploited so when they see AI being used, it’s seen as a sign of management cutting corners or underinvesting,” she explains of the outrage around this post. “Why couldn’t management pay a little more to get something that didn't look like AI slop? It comes down to humanism and authenticity, but also, ‘Don’t lie to us as fans. Don’t act like you're investing in this photoshoot but actually it was mostly AI-generated’.”

The AI artist Dr. Keith is referring to is Oh Jaewon, who founded his own AI-based VFX studio called Oloid in 2025. Rather than seeing AI as replacing creativity, however, he believes it’s simply another tool in an artist’s arsenal. “I think the concerns that fans have are understandable,” he tells Dazed over email. “The common perception is that AI is used as a low-cost replacement but in many cases we’re asked for visuals that have a specific AI-driven aesthetic. There’s also a misconception that AI VFX is always cheaper than traditional 3D VFX when, in practice, aligning AI-generated imagery with real footage can be technically demanding and time-consuming. AI changes what creatives do, rather than removing the need for them altogether.”

Brian Jenkins, the former VP of business development, Asia-Pacific, for Warner Chappell Music, extends this to the use of AI in music making itself. “There’s this line of thinking that AI fits in the same world as Pro Logic, Pro Tools, and all of those creation tools that exist to help songwriters develop and create new music,” he tells Dazed. “We’re still coming to grips with it. Every label is looking at AI and trying to figure out how to use it in different ways. AI music, AI idols, they become their own genre and there are people who like those idols.”

But, for Dr. Keith, this usage comes with some big moral questions. “Do artists need to disclose it if they get AI to tweak the instruments?” she asks. “To make things even more complicated, services like Suno and Udio have their own digital audio workstations, so you can create a song, start to finish, and it could be part-AI and part-human generated, but [that ratio] might be 99:1 or 1:99. It’s only going to get more nebulous on what is AI and what isn’t.” For the moment, generative AI music cannot secure publishing or performance rights, but Jenkins warns that this “is a fight that’s going to come soon”. 

“The threat is K-pop without Korea. Is the future of K-pop AI generated idol groups by Chinese or Russian creators?”

– Dr. Sarah Keith, senior lecturer in music and media at Macquarie University, Sydney

Dr. Keith also adds that there’s a bigger, cultural question at stake. “The threat is K-pop without Korea,” she says. “Is the future of K-pop AI generated idol groups by Chinese or Russian creators? That will be a huge headache for the Korean government which has put so much money into cultivating K-pop as the cornerstone of Korea’s public image and economy. For that reason, K-pop will be quite interested in maintaining the human and the Korean connection. At its core, Korea will not move far from the training system. It may experiment with generative AI but not so much that it actually dilutes the whole market.”

Orion, the creator of AI K-pop group GLXE, however, is largely unperturbed by these fraught moral questions – and argues that most of his fans aren’t either. “There are people who are gonna be anti-AI until they die,” he tells Dazed. “Some are on the fence, like, ‘Oh, I wish they weren't AI, but I love the music’. But 90 per cent say, ‘I don’t care that it’s AI, I just love them’, or that they like them better because they’re AI and not being manipulated or taken advantage of by a label.” 

He’s grown accustomed to his work being described as ‘AI slop’ – “Someone called me a ‘slopperator’, which I found quite funny” – but he also argues that critics underestimate just how much of his own energy he’s put into the GLXE project. “Yes, AI makes everything easier and possible, but it takes a person managing it, directing it, curating it. You have to have a creative vision of what you want to accomplish. You can’t ask AI for a hot guy doing a Blackpink dance, and it’ll just do it. That’s not how it works.”

 “Someone called me a ‘slopperator’, which I found quite funny”

– Orion, creator of AI K-pop act GLXE

For Orion, AI software like Veo3 and Suno are tools of democratisation, allowing him to enter an industry which is otherwise near-impossible to crack. “I tried reaching out to producers on my favourite K-pop songs saying, ‘How do I start? I’ve got this idea for a group’ but I didn’t hear back, so I decided to make it happen myself,” he explains of the project’s conception. “I write lyrics. I don’t pretend to be a musician but I’ve got these ‘advanced samples’ [Orion’s way of referring to songs made in Suno] that I’ve worked on. I want GLXE to not be AI, that’s my dream.”

Orion and his online ilk might not threaten the multi-billion dollar idol industry right now, but it’d be remiss not to consider them a warning shot over the parapet. Like it or not, the role of AI in K-pop music is rapidly becoming unavoidable, and fans, artists and labels alike need to decide what future they want to invest in.

For the remaining members of the ENHYPEN ASIA fan account, the answer is simple. “Innovation itself is not the enemy, but the future of K-pop depends on protecting the human touch,” stresses group member Mitch. “Without it, the genre risks becoming technically flawless but emotionally distant.” Their fellow moderator, Cha, agrees: “It’s about the choices the idol makes, and the moments where their personalities and creativity shine through. That’s what makes their work feel alive and irreplaceable. Technology should support their artistry, not overshadow it, because the heart of their music and performances comes from them, and that is what keeps fans engaged and inspired.”

The future of K-pop depends on protecting the human touch. Without it, the genre risks becoming technically flawless but emotionally distant.

– Mitch, ENHYPEN ASIA 

While K-pop companies are continuing to integrate AI in one form or another, we must remind ourselves that inevitability does not have to mean acceptance. If fandoms do not want generative AI in their idols’ content – whether that’s ChatGPT for lyrics, Suno for music or Nano Banana for video – then fandoms must make that clear beyond venting their anger on social platforms. 

The K-pop machine, like all machines, can be broken. No one in K-pop, says Brian Jenkins, even the seemingly indomitable Big 4 labels (YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and HYBE) are infallible to failure when fandoms close their eyes and wallets. “It’s happened to all of them. As much success as they’ve had, they've also had quite a few duds. If fans don’t like AI and don’t engage with it, it’s not going anywhere,” Jenkins continues. “K-pop puts out tons of music every year, and a very small portion of it succeeds and a lot of it doesn’t because fans decide they didn’t like the group, whether it’s the music or look, whatever it might be. AI will be judged by the same harsh glare that everything else is in K-pop.”