UMG licenses TYGER, an app that reshapes songs around your gameplay

Universal Music Group has signed a licensing deal with TYGER, a San Diego music service for gamers whose tracks adapt to what's happening in the game while you play. Announced on 22 Oct 2026, it makes UMG the first major music company to license TYGER, according to both companies. Selected recordings and songs from UMG's recorded music and publishing catalogues will go on TYGER's paid, on-demand subscription, and some recordings will also appear on its free tier with ads.

It is one of the more interesting AI deals a major has signed, because TYGER doesn't generate music. It rearranges music that already exists.

What is TYGER?

TYGER is a music player that runs next to a game rather than inside it. Game studios don't have to build anything in, which is the point: TYGER can soundtrack Fortnite without Epic doing any work. On its own Fortnite page, TYGER says in-game events such as kills, deaths and match phases act as triggers that can change how the music plays, and that each event can be customised in the app. With adaptive mode off, it's an ordinary music player.

The Overwolf listing names Fortnite, Valorant, Apex Legends and Rainbow Six among the games with adaptive audio, and describes a beta catalogue of more than 400,000 songs. MBW reports that the library is mostly independent artists, that the beta covers more than 20 games with a combined 540 million-plus monthly players (TYGER's figure for those games' audiences, not its own user count), and that the service currently runs only on PC through the Overwolf app store, though it's designed for console and mobile too. The paid tier, TYGER Club, is listed at $3.99 a month in early access, rising to $5.99 at full release.

How far does it actually change a song? TYGER's own pages say quite a lot. Its AI stance page, written by CEO and co-founder Nick Venti, says the engine changes how a song plays in real time, such as dropping the vocals or building to the biggest moment, and insists "the music stays the artist's." A 2024 post by the label Here & Now Recordings described TYGER's tech as splitting tracks into stems and remixing them live to follow gameplay. TYGER's own pages describe changes to separate layers of a song (vocals off, drums and bass only), which fits that description, though we couldn't find TYGER describing the process in technical terms.

The company grew out of PlusMusic.ai, an adaptive-audio startup that former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden joined as a board member in 2023. Its terms of service name the operator as Look Sharp Labs, Inc., doing business as TYGER.

What TYGER says about AI and artists

TYGER is careful to separate itself from AI music generators. The stance page opens by saying it doesn't make AI-generated music, says every song on the service is licensed, and says artists are paid when their music is played. It also criticises generative AI companies that trained on artists' work without asking or paying.

That is a better starting position than most AI music companies have. But "artists get paid" is not a rate, and neither company has published one. Neither MBW's report nor The Next Web's says whether artists have to approve their inclusion or how royalties are structured. UMG's chief digital officer Michael Nash pitched it as a way for UMG artists to soundtrack personalised gameplay. MBW also points back to UMG chief Lucian Grainge calling "hyper-personalization" a phenomenal opportunity at NVIDIA's GTC in March.

We looked for reactions from gamers and producers on Reddit and elsewhere and didn't find any substantial ones yet. If you're a UMG artist or a TYGER-catalogue indie and you've been told how this pays, we'd like to hear from you.

What we think

Adaptive playback is closer to a remix licence than to a stream, and the deal is being sold like a stream.

Look at how it's described: a "paid, on-demand subscription" and an "ad-supported tier". That's streaming-service language. But what TYGER does to a track is closer to what a game composer or sync supervisor does with it: it ties the music to on-screen action, changes its intensity and, rebuilds it layer by layer on the fly. Sync is negotiated placement by placement, which gives the rights holder a fee and a chance to say no. Streaming pays a share of a pool per play, with no say over where the listener is or what they're doing. Which of those models this deal resembles is the whole question for artists, and nobody has answered it.

Three specifics we'd want answered before calling this a good deal:

• What counts as a play? A streaming royalty counts discrete plays of a song. A track that loops, swells and drops through a 25-minute match doesn't fit that unit. If TYGER pays per track start, long sessions earn artists very little. If it pays per minute, the figures change entirely.
• Who approves the context? TYGER lets players attach music changes to kills and deaths. Plenty of artists would happily score a Fortnite win. Some wouldn't want a ballad wired to a headshot. Nothing published so far suggests TYGER asks the artist, so whether they get a say depends on what their label contract already allows.
• Whose terms become the benchmark? TYGER's library was mostly independent before UMG arrived. A major deal tends to set the rate card. Indies already in the catalogue have reason to ask whether UMG got better terms than they did, and whether theirs will now be renegotiated towards it.

We also think it matters that this is the version of AI the majors are comfortable licensing: AI that works on top of their recordings, inside their licences, rather than AI that replaces them. That's fairer to artists than unlicensed generation. It also normalises the idea that a licensed recording can be rearranged in real time by software, with the artist's consent folded into whatever their label already signed. Once that's a standard term in a gaming licence, it will be much easier to put in a streaming one.

So the useful response from artists isn't to oppose TYGER. It's to ask their label or distributor, in writing, three things: is adaptive use opt-in, what's the unit of payment, and can I see or veto how my stems are used?

Sources

• TYGER: our stance on AI music (primary)
• TYGER: adaptive audio for Fortnite (primary)
• TYGER Terms of Service (primary)
• Overwolf: TYGER app listing (primary)
• Music Business Worldwide: UMG becomes first major to license TYGER
• Music Business Worldwide: Shawn Layden joins PlusMusic.ai board (2023)
• The Next Web: UMG licenses music to TYGER
• Here & Now Recordings: music streaming in video games (2024)