Musician Shankar Mahadevan uses AI to create song Rubaroo, says AI can’t replace musicians, it’s like a friend-assistant

May 25, 2025 09:53 AM IST

Composer Shankar Mahadevan creates track Rubaroo using AI tool using Sandbox, in collaboration with YouTube and Google Lab. Says, “AI can’t replace musians.” 

Ushering in a new phase for the industry, singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan used artificial intelligence (AI) to compose a new track, Rubaroo. The creation process was showcased virtually during Google’s annual I/O developer conference in California (US).

Shankar Mahadevan recently composed a new track, Rubaroo(Photo: Instagram)

“We were able to bring together a beautiful Sufi melody with a contemporary track. For a musician, it’s such an inspiring tool,” says the 58-year-old, who created the track in his Mumbai studio using Sandbox, in collaboration with YouTube and Google Lab.

However, the Grammy winner is quick to draw a line between assistance and replacement: “AI is the way for enhancing technology right now. We should not assume that it can replace humans. There’s a thought that AI will replace musicians and singers. But there’s nothing to fear. Human intelligence, when working with AI, can achieve wonders. Just that, we need to use it to the best of our advantage and responsibly.”

Describing AI as a “friend and personal assistant,” Shankar explains that it serves as a trigger for ideas rather than a creator of finished music: “It offers suggestions, like a line or a tune, which the artiste can then build upon. Some things were phenomenon and out of the world but some very amateurish and basic. will suggest with your work but the first and a last call has to be taken by human being! At the core you need to be a good musician to be able to use AI to your advantage.”

Reflecting on the evolution of technology in music, he states, “50 years ago when synthesizers came in, or when programming software took over, musicians had the same fear. But we have remained irreplaceable.”

He says that lot of work is already happening on the AI front. “It is already happening not only in music but in every field. We have started utilising in our work. It’s just a tool. 50 years back when synthesizers came musicians were like what will happen to us, but we realised no one can replace live musicians, same fear was with programming software, but nothing happened,” he concludes.

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