The MusicWe’ve all got that mate who knows everything about music. You know, the one that was there when Nirvana supported Violent Femmes? Or who contradicts you when you start talking about Holy Grail when you really meant Throw Your Arms Around Me? Or who knows what song topped the triple j Hottest 100 the year you were born? The Music has leaned in, so you can put them back in their box with the launch of The Music Nerd AI.
The Music Nerd is built on ethical AI, adhering to The Music’s principles of human-created journalism and ethical, permission-based AI training, showing an alternative pathway to the ‘tech at any cost’ approach.
The answer engine, available on the front page of TheMusic.com.au, uses the technology to unlock the decades of music history, including the archives of previous titles, including Drum Media, Inpress, Pilerats, Purple Sneakers, Kill Your Stereo, Rave and more, creating new paths for unlocking facts and great Australian stories of the past and present.
To create the answer engine, The Music has partnered with Gist Answers, a product of Prorata.ai, a company dedicated to attribution and permission solutions for publishers. The Music Nerd AI draws on The Music Press’ database of over 100,000 articles, as well as other external sources, to create a robust trove of music information, with ethics and sustainability front and centre.
The engine will continue to improve, and the company welcomes the ability to test and improve while bringing its readers along for the ride.
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“Technology isn’t inherently right or wrong, but we believe that the way it is used can be,” said The Music Press CEO and publisher Stephen Green. “The current AI land grab is littered with examples of large tech companies running roughshod over people’s rights, illegal scraping and data use and machine-generated editorial.
“It can be used to rewrite a competitor’s content twenty-four hours later or simply regurgitate press releases to create ‘news’ slop, but technology doesn’t make that choice; humans do. Time will tell where things will land industrially and legally, but The Music is taking a strong stand on its two key principles of respecting intellectual property and creating stories about humans by humans.
“Exploring and utilising technology can be done in a principled, ethical way, and this is just one example of where the technology is unlocking decades of human stories, not supplanting them. We have been front and centre through the eras of print, digital and social, and as technology evolves, we see it as our duty to evolve with it, while not losing sight of the art and humanity that makes our business great. Technology is there to serve our principles, not the other way around.”
The Music had massive growth in 2025, hitting a peak of 358,000 unique Australian readers in November and a massive 26.1 million social content views. Its multi-platform reach also includes a 60,000-strong newsletter audience as well as its sister publications Countrytown and the Where To Australia network, creating a robust offering of opportunities to engage Australians and enrich their lives with music.
To take The Music: Nerd AI for a spin, check out the widget on our homepage here.
