The hire is a signal: Suno is building a deal engine

Suno didn’t hire “a marketing leader.” It hired a commercial operator whose career sits inside the most mature side of the music economy: licensing. In Suno’s words, Sirota will lead commercial strategy, relationships, platform partnerships, and enterprise solutions. That job description is a roadmap: the company expects the next phase of AI music to be won or lost in contracts. (MBW)

This matters because AI music is moving from “can we generate a song?” to “can we run an industry?” That means (1) predictable licensing frameworks, (2) reporting and auditability, (3) enforcement workflows that don’t break the product, and (4) enterprise partners willing to touch the output.

In other words: the next model upgrade won’t be enough if the platform can’t survive the licensing and regulatory endgame. Hiring a Chief Commercial Officer with Merlin credentials is a wager that Suno can remain broadly usable while professionalizing the rights layer underneath it.

Why Merlin is the relevant background

Merlin is a licensing partner for independent labels and distributors. It sits between catalog owners and global digital platforms. That means Merlin’s daily reality is negotiation, measurement, reporting, audits, and making sure the system pays out the way it promised.

MBW reported that Sirota would step down as Merlin CEO effective December 31, 2025, and that Charlie Lexton would become CEO effective January 1, 2026. (MBW, MBW)

The key point isn’t résumé prestige. It’s pattern recognition: the licensing world has a playbook for how new technology gets absorbed into the rights economy. AI music is now being forced into that same playbook, just faster and with higher stakes.

Suno vs Udio: two ways to survive the same pressure

You can’t read Sirota’s hire correctly without comparing how AI music platforms are responding to the same pressure: rights holders demand control and compensation, while creators demand portability and distribution. Most platforms land in one of two strategies: containment or openness with heavier governance.

Udio’s containment signal: feature restrictions tied to partnership terms

Udio’s own Help Center says that downloading audio, video, and stems was disabled, in connection with its UMG partnership dated October 29, 2025. (Udio Help Center)

Regardless of how temporary or permanent specific restrictions may be, the market lesson is durable: licensing can directly change the product. When the legal layer tightens, platforms often reduce exportability because it lowers downstream risk.

Suno’s “open studio” direction: keep usefulness, then scale governance

Reporting on Warner’s deal with Suno emphasizes opt-in participation for artists’ voices/names/likenesses, plus the creation of licensed models. That direction is often paired with new limits and tiers around downloads and usage as platforms internalize licensing costs. (The Guardian; The Verge)

This is where Sirota fits: if Suno wants to remain broadly usable, it needs a commercial leader who can build deals that protect partners without turning the studio into a locked box.

Licensing architecture: what a Chief Commercial Officer is hired to design

“Licensing” sounds like one contract. In reality, AI music licensing becomes a stack: training permissions, output rules, attribution expectations, revenue allocation, audit rights, enforcement protocols, and enterprise indemnities. You can have a great model and still fail if you can’t operate this stack at scale.

Layer 1: Training rights (the legal core)

The RIAA’s June 24, 2024 announcement frames the central accusation: “mass infringement” through copying and exploiting recordings without permission, and it identifies the federal courts where the cases were filed. (RIAA)

Whether AI training qualifies as fair use is still disputed. But the market is not waiting for a final answer. Platforms that want stability are moving toward licensing structures that reduce uncertainty, even if litigation continues elsewhere.

The most common training-rights architecture options look like this:

• Opt-in training catalogs: only participating catalogs are used for specific models.
• Licensed pools: platform pays into a pool and rights holders receive allocations under a formula.
• Hybrid: opt-in for sensitive uses (voice/likeness), pool for broader catalog compensation.

Layer 2: Output rules (where creators feel the policy)

Output rules define what users can do with generated tracks: download, distribute, monetize, publish, remix, derive, or use as commercial input. The simplest observable truth in 2025–2026 is that output rules can change fast when a platform signs a major partnership.

Udio’s note about disabling downloads (audio/video/stems) is a direct example of this “rules shift.” (Udio Help Center)

If Suno aims to keep portability, it will likely accept tighter governance in other areas: stronger enforcement against targeted imitation, more robust moderation for prompts that imply specific artists, clearer disclosure expectations, and structured “repeat offender” systems.

Layer 3: Measurement, reporting, and auditability (the unglamorous layer that decides everything)

In a mature licensing economy, the “boring” parts are the parts that keep the lights on: What data is reported? How often? How are disputes handled? Can rights holders audit? What happens when someone claims a violation?

A commercial leader with deep licensing exposure understands that you don’t just sell a product—you sell trust in the accounting and the rules. This is where Merlin experience becomes unusually relevant: the platform has to run the system, not just announce it.

Layer 4: Enterprise licensing (where credibility becomes revenue)

Enterprise clients don’t want “maybe legal.” They want defined permission boundaries, documentation, and a predictable compliance posture. If Suno wants enterprise solutions to scale, the licensing architecture has to be coherent and defensible. That’s exactly what the Chief Commercial Officer role description points toward. (MBW)

Financial modeling: how AI licensing pools could work

Most readers hear “licensing pool” and imagine a single payout number. Real pools have three moving parts: (1) how the pool is funded, (2) what costs are removed (admin, audit, enforcement), and (3) how payouts are allocated across rights holders.

Pool math (simple version)

Gross Pool = Annual Platform Revenue (R) × Pool Rate (p)
Net Pool = Gross Pool × (1 − Admin/Audit/Enforcement % (a))

Scenario table (visual)

Allocation: the fight after the pool exists

Funding a pool is step one. The hard part is allocation. The most workable systems tend to converge on some combination of:

1. Catalog-share allocation: predictable base allocation tied to catalog participation.
2. Usage-proxy allocation: additional allocation based on measurable influence proxies from outputs (how this is measured is contentious).
3. Hybrid model: base + kicker so the system is both predictable and responsive.

This is where political pressure shows up. Big catalog owners push for catalog share. Smaller rights holders push for usage-based fairness. Regulators tend to push for transparency and auditable rules. Platforms push for formulas they can actually run.

Why “launch → train → settle” keeps appearing in public analysis

If you want a blunt read of the incentives: Forbes argued that a profitable pattern can emerge when companies scale first, then negotiate from strength with the few players who can force a settlement. That argument is controversial, but it explains why licensing pools and attribution infrastructure have become a central topic. (Forbes)

From a market-design perspective, the key shift is this: once pools exist, AI music stops being “a legal gray zone” and starts being “a metered economy.” And once it’s a metered economy, commercial leadership becomes as important as model leadership.

The regulatory trajectory: where this likely goes (2026–2028)

Regulation rarely arrives as one clean law that solves everything. It arrives as a sequence of constraints: reporting expectations, transparency requirements, enforcement obligations, and rules that become de facto standards because major partners demand them.

Forecast 1: Measurement mandates will expand

Whether through law, settlement terms, or enterprise procurement rules, measurement will become the price of entry: what was trained, what was excluded, how opt-in works, how disputes are handled, and how payouts are calculated. Platforms that can’t produce credible reporting will be pushed toward containment or pushed out of enterprise integrations.

Forecast 2: Product tiering becomes licensing economics made visible

When licensing gets expensive, platforms rarely “eat the cost.” They translate it into tiers: caps, higher pricing, export limitations, or paid add-ons. Deal reporting around “licensed models” and future platform changes is a signal that this kind of economics is now on the table. (The Guardian)

Forecast 3: Walled gardens won’t fully replace open studios—but they will become a compliance option

The strongest evidence for “walled gardens” is not theory. It’s policy reality. Udio’s public note on disabled downloads shows how quickly containment can appear under partnership terms. (Udio Help Center)

Expect a two-lane market: platforms that preserve portability but pay for it with higher governance and higher licensing cost, and platforms that reduce risk by reducing exportability.

Forecast 4: Valuation pressure accelerates the “deal-first” era

When a company raises at a multi-billion valuation while under legal pressure, it increases the need to demonstrate that the business can operate under a stable licensing regime. Reporting on Suno’s Series C and valuation provides context for why the platform would invest in commercial leadership that can scale partnerships and enterprise solutions. (MBW, TechCrunch)

What creators should take from this (no panic, just clarity)

If you’re building in AI music right now, the mistake is thinking platform rules are stable. They are not. They are increasingly downstream of licensing terms.

Here’s what’s realistic in 2026:

• Export rules can change fast when partnerships or settlements land.
• Tiers and caps become more common as licensing cost becomes a recurring expense.
• Disclosure expectations rise (internally for enterprise, publicly for consumer trust, and possibly through regulation).
• Imitation policy tightens because voice/name/likeness risk is one of the easiest areas for partners to demand constraints.

The practical move is to build a workflow that isn’t fragile: keep your session notes, export versions when allowed, document your releases, and assume platform permissions are “subject to change.” That’s not pessimism. That’s operating like a professional in a fast-forming market.

The real story: AI music is becoming a licensed, metered economy

The early AI music era was defined by model novelty and chaotic public debate. The next era is defined by systems: contracts, reporting, and enforcement.

Suno hiring Jeremy Sirota is not just a personnel move. It’s an architectural move. It suggests Suno wants to scale as a platform that can sign serious deals, sell enterprise solutions, and keep enough openness to remain useful to creators. That’s a hard balance. It requires a commercial operator who has lived inside licensing infrastructure. (MBW)

Whether Suno succeeds will depend on what it can make true at the operational level: that “licensed models” can exist without destroying the product, and that rights holders can be compensated in a way that’s auditable and durable.

FAQ

References

• Music Business Worldwide — Suno hires ex-Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota as Chief Commercial Officer
• RIAA — Record companies bring cases against Suno and Udio (June 24, 2024)
• Udio Help Center — Changes associated with the UMG partnership
• The Guardian — Warner Music signs deal with AI song generator Suno
• The Verge — Warner Music Group partners with Suno in AI licensing deal
• Music Business Worldwide — Suno raises $250M at $2.45B valuation
• TechCrunch — Suno raises at $2.45B valuation
• Music Business Worldwide — Jeremy Sirota to exit as Merlin CEO
• Music Business Worldwide — Charlie Lexton appointed CEO of Merlin
• Forbes — “Launch, Train, Settle” analysis