He was a pioneer in streaming. Now he says AI will end pop stars

Ken Cheung saw the future of music streaming in 2005 when he co-founded streaming platform QQ Music under Tencent. That was before Spotify even existed and years ahead of the global streaming boom. 

Now, he’s warning that the era of megastars like Taylor Swift may be over, and it’s all thanks to AI. 

“You used to need an industry connection just to get a track made,” Cheung says. “Now anyone can do it with the right tools.”

Image credit: Timmy Loen

As the tech breaks down barriers to music production, this is giving way to a music industry defined by smaller acts, each with their own loyal pockets of fans, he says.

In an interview with Tech in Asia, Cheung talks about how AI is disrupting music, China’s evolving tech playbook, and why today’s founders need to build with greater restraint.

Disrupted again

Cheung joined Tencent in 2003, at a time when the company was preparing to go public. It was also the era of what he calls the “copyright Wild West,” when China’s internet giants like Tencent and Baidu turned a blind eye on users sharing and consuming pirated content.

Before 2005, China’s piracy rate was more than 90%. While the infamous Napster was shut down in 2001, China’s lack of strong copyright laws allowed homegrown services like VeryCD and Baidu MP3 Search to flourish.

Photo credit: hxdbzxy/Shutterstock

Cheung was worried that going public would invite more scrutiny for Tencent and lead to lawsuits and reputational damage. A single lawsuit could have sent its stock price tumbling, potentially adding up to more than what it would cost to secure legal music rights in the first place.

That argument helped him convince Tencent’s board to invest a “reasonable amount of money” in licensing music from international publishers.

See also: Music NFTs could be the next breakthrough application in crypto

At one point, Tencent even considered acquiring KKBox, a Taiwanese music-streaming service, instead of building its own platform, QQ Music, from scratch. But with limited cash ahead of its IPO, the deal never materialized.

The evolving “China vs. the world” narrative 

Why restraint matters