Neutune

Neutune is a Korean AI music technology company that builds infrastructure for establishing content provenance at the level of individual musical components. Its stated premise is that music, whether AI-generated, human-made or hybrid, is assembled from components such as melody, rhythm, vocals, bass lines, instrumentation and lyrics, each of which has an origin and attached rights, and that existing rights infrastructure cannot determine what was used, where it came from, or how revenue should be allocated.

The company operates two main products. musicDNA is a B2B system that decomposes submitted audio into atomic components (typically 2-4 bars or 8-16 bars depending on the analysis) and matches each component against a reference database of musical works, analyzing publishing and recording rights simultaneously. It produces an attribution and compliance report listing copyrighted works identified, atomic components detected, contribution levels, degree of transformation, copyright infringement indicators and compliance status, and is offered through an API. Audio is processed transiently: embeddings are extracted and the original audio is discarded, so no centralized audio storage is required. Stated applications include copyright infringement detection, fraud detection, AI and hybrid music analysis, pre-distribution screening, voice-cloning detection, rights management, and reporting and compliance. MixAudio is a B2C licensed AI remix platform in which users select a track from a licensed catalog and remix it, with every stem, vocal, melody, lyric and licensed component recorded in real time during generation; it is also offered as a white-label solution for labels, DSPs and music platforms. Provenance is recorded across four categories: musical work, sound recording, vocal stem and lyrics.

Underpinning the products are two proposed foundations: ISBC (International Standard Sound Block Code), a granular identifier for atomic musical components intended to connect ISRC and ISWC at the component level and designed in alignment with DDEX standards, and BlockDB, a provenance-aware registry linking atomic components, usage events, rights data and revenue logic. Earlier descriptions of MixAudio present it as a generative service that creates instrumental tracks from text or image prompts, drawing on a library of roughly 300,000 human-composed sound blocks of at least eight measures that are arranged and modified into new songs, with tracking so that the musicians who created the blocks are compensated.

Founding story

Neutune was co-founded in 2020 by Dr. Jongpil Lee together with researchers from the Music and Audio Computing Lab at KAIST. The CEO has described a shared conviction among the founding group, which included six co-founders, that music should be distributed in smaller modular units and that it cannot be fairly monetized in the AI era without infrastructure operating at the component level.

Business model

Neutune sells component-level provenance and rights technology to two segments: a B2B API product (musicDNA) that returns attribution and compliance reports for submitted audio, and a consumer remix platform (MixAudio) that is also offered as a white-label solution to labels, DSPs and music platforms. Its AI music tools have additionally been deployed commercially in automotive, smart TV, mobile and gaming environments.

For MixAudio the company describes three revenue flows: component usage during generation, streaming of the original work, and streaming of the remix, with usage-based micro-settlement rather than pool-based distribution, so that rights holders are paid according to what was actually used. musicDNA is made available through an API, and MixAudio is also licensed as a white-label product.

Traction

The previous MixAudio platform generated 1.3 million tracks across 220 countries, with commercial deployments spanning automotive, smart TV, mobile and gaming platforms including Renault, Hyundai and LG Electronics. MixAudio's generation library comprises roughly 300,000 human-composed sound blocks. The company reports patents filed, awards from CES and the German Design Award, recognition from Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and a research paper accepted at the NeurIPS 2025 AI4Music workshop.

Latest developments

In 2025 Neutune outlined an upgrade of MixAudio into a full AI music agent, described by the CEO as aiming to be a musical equivalent of a general-purpose chat assistant, with added capabilities for editing, analysis and adjustment of AI-generated music and export to mixing software, plus a roadmap covering AI-powered fan engagement, pilot launches of AI music agents and remix tools, and broader rollout of remixing, discovery and licensing tools with revenue-sharing models. The company also published research at the NeurIPS 2025 AI4Music workshop on music AI agent architectures and attribution-driven remix licensing.