The numbers are staggering. With AI tools now generating more than seven million new songs every day, music creation has entered an era of radical abundance. But according to Snow Jiang (Snow.J), Founder and CEO of Cheerful Music, abundance doesn’t equal value — and that distinction may define the next chapter of the industry.
Speaking at Harvard Business School’s China Classroom in Chengdu, Snow returned as a featured case-study guest to unpack Cheerful Music’s evolution as the first Chinese music company selected as an official HBS teaching case. The session, titled The AI Future of the Music Industry, focused less on technology’s novelty and more on its implications.
“When music can be generated infinitely,” Snow told students, “music itself stops being scarce. What becomes scarce is being heard.”
It’s a deceptively simple insight, but one that cuts to the heart of modern music culture. Cheerful Music’s catalogue — including viral phenomena like Xiang Si Yao and Luo Le Bai — has thrived not because of volume, but because of emotional clarity. These tracks weren’t just streamed; they were embedded into short-form video ecosystems, becoming cultural signals rather than standalone releases.
During the discussion, Snow was candid about the shifting economics of attention. Achieving the same level of impact now costs four to five times more than it did five years ago — a reflection of saturation, not inefficiency. One student reframed the company’s model succinctly: music is the surface, but community is the core.
That philosophy extends into Cheerful Music’s technological infrastructure. Rather than relying on third-party AI platforms with unclear licensing, the company is building a fully owned, rights-secure AI music ecosystem. Every modular component — melody, arrangement, vocal — is legally clean, allowing creativity to scale without copyright compromise.
Visually, Cheerful Music’s virtual artist strategy plays a complementary role. These figures aren’t designed to replace musicians, but to act as visual anchors — memory devices in a feed-driven culture where discovery is often image-first.
As Cheerful Music expands internationally — from hosting songwriting camps to showcasing at Amsterdam Dance Event and preparing for SXSW 2026 — its trajectory suggests a broader shift. In an age of infinite output, success belongs not to those who create the most, but to those who understand why people listen at all.
