The 2027 Grammys' AI rule in plain English: only humans win, and the CEO's bar is higher than the rulebook's

The 69th Grammy nominations will be announced on 16 November 2026, and the ceremony is on 7 February 2027. The awards will be judged under AI rules that Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr says were put in place in 2023 and "still stand today". Nothing has been nominated yet, so this is a preview. Here is what the rule actually says, where the CEO's own summary goes further than the text, and what that gap means for artists who use AI in their work.

What does the rulebook say?

The rule is one paragraph, headed "Generative Artificial Intelligence", in Rule One of the 69th Grammy rulebook. In plain English, it does four things:

1. Only people. Only human creators can be submitted, nominated or win. A work with no human authorship is not eligible in any category.
2. AI material is allowed. A work that includes material generated by AI is eligible in "applicable categories", but only if the human part is "meaningful and more than de minimis".
3. The human part has to match the category. In a songwriting category, the human authorship has to be in the music and/or lyrics. In a performance category, it has to be in the performance.
4. No credit for the AI part. Whoever made the AI material can't be a nominee or winner for that portion of the work.

The rulebook defines de minimis as "lacking significance or importance; so minor as to merit disregard". So the written test is that the human contribution must be more than trivial. It does not have to be most of the work.

Can the Academy check?

Yes, but in general terms. Among the rights the Academy reserves in Rule Three, it can disqualify an entry from a particular category if it decides, "in the Academy's sole discretion", that the entry lacks meaningful human authorship relevant to that category. In the same list, it can require a submitter or rightsholder to provide whatever extra information it thinks it needs to verify the eligibility of any entry. That second power isn't specific to AI, but it sits right next to the AI clause. The rulebook doesn't describe any AI detection process, and neither does the Academy's June interview with Mason. Its only mention of verification is about checking voters for the new Ballot Plus system.

Where does "majority" come from?

Not from the rulebook. In the Academy's own June interview, Mason says works with AI material can still be eligible, but "there has to be meaningful human authorship or performance in the appropriate Category". He then gives an example: in a songwriting category, "a majority of the song must be written by a human". In a performance category, he says, only a human performer can be recognised.

The performance line matches the rulebook. The songwriting line doesn't. "More than de minimis" means more than trivial. "A majority" means more than half. A song where a person wrote a third of the lyrics and the melody, and an AI tool filled in the rest, plausibly clears the first bar and fails the second. Since the rulebook gives the Academy sole discretion over disqualification, our reading is that Mason's version is the better guide to how a borderline songwriting entry is likely to be judged, even though it isn't what's written down.

Did anything change for 2027?

Not to the AI rule. The rule updates for the 69th awards add five categories, including Best Asian Pop Music Performance and Best Latin Song. They also cut the share of new recordings an album needs from 75% to 66%, and introduce opt-in "Ballot Plus" voting. In most genre album categories, songwriters and composers of new material on winning albums will now get statuettes, as producers and engineers already do. Neither the rule-update announcement nor the rulebook's list of changes mentions AI. In the interview, Mason said AI is "moving fast" and the Academy will keep looking at the rules year by year.

The eligibility window for these awards closed on 28 August 2026, and first-round voting runs from 12 to 22 October. So entries for this cycle are already in and are being judged under this text.

How does this compare with copyright and labelling?

The Grammy test sits close to US copyright law, but it isn't the same thing. In January 2025 the US Copyright Office concluded that, with current technology, prompts alone are unlikely to make someone the author of an AI output, and that human contribution has to be judged case by case. The Grammy rulebook doesn't mention prompts. Our reading is that a track made from a prompt alone would struggle to show "meaningful" human authorship under either standard.

The Grammys are also one of the signatories to a voluntary AI labelling scheme for recordings, announced on 10 July with IFPI, RIAA, IMPALA, SAG-AFTRA and others. It calls a track "AI-Generated" when AI made the whole recording or its primary creative elements, such as the lead vocal. Elsewhere it's "AI-Assisted". The scheme covers sound recordings only, and IMPALA says it doesn't yet cover lyrics or composition. We covered how platforms are labelling AI music here.

What we think

The rule is reasonable. The problem is the gap between the rule and the CEO's account of it. "Only humans win, AI parts get no credit" is a fair principle, and it treats AI as a tool, not an entrant. But artists can't plan around a threshold that's stated two different ways. A songwriter who reads the rulebook will think a meaningful contribution is enough. A songwriter who reads the interview will think they need more than half. Both are reading official Academy documents. We think the Academy should either write "majority" into the songwriting rule or say publicly that the rulebook's lower bar is the one that applies. As it stands, the CEO's example sets the bar for songwriting entries without ever going through the rule-change process.

Keep your receipts. The verification power is broad and has no defined process. Our practical advice for anyone who enters, now or in future cycles: keep dated lyric drafts, voice memos, session files and notes on which tools did what. The rulebook doesn't require this, but it lets the Academy ask, and you won't be able to recreate that paper trail after the fact. For writers who use AI for a melody idea or a demo vocal, records showing which parts are theirs are the only evidence they have.

Who wins and who loses. The clear winners are human writers who use AI as an assistant. They are eligible, and the AI part simply isn't credited. The losers are AI-voiced acts. By the rulebook's own logic, the human writers behind them can compete for the song, but nobody can be recognised for a performance that an AI voice gave. Hardest hit are the people in between: co-writes where a person shaped an AI-generated topline, or producers whose "AI material" is really heavily edited. Those calls will be made case by case, behind closed doors, under a standard the Academy's own CEO describes differently from its rulebook. When nominations land on 16 November, watch whether the Academy says anything about entries it moved or disqualified on AI grounds. Silence would tell artists as much as a statement.