Native Instruments was bought. What will happen to our plugins?

Good morning producers 👋🏼

This month, we have an exciting newsletter for you! Native Instruments is officially acquired by inMusic, Spotify rolls out a credit function for AI involvement, and there's a new "fastest growing streamer". In this constantly changing landscape, we try to be the anchor whether through our plugins or our newsletter. Let's dive into the biggest stories of this last month. Thanks for taking the time (off) ;)

Native Instruments has been bought!

If you've been following industry developments, you may remember that in our February issue we somewhat morbidly suggested that this could mark the downfall of Native Instruments (NI) following their insolvency proceedings in Germany.

On May 8, NI CEO Nick Williams announced: "After three months of hard work, and three months of extraordinary loyalty from you, I am pleased to share that a definitive agreement has now been signed for Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic."

So what happens next in terms of continued support? According to Williams, "The products, platforms, and brands you rely on continue. Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Brainworx — all of it continues. Our teams continue to build, ship, and support every day." This follows a statement from inMusic CEO Jack O'Donnell, who said: "Our commitment is simple: continued investment across all brands and product lines, and a long-term focus on innovation that serves creators at every level. The tools you rely on today will keep working, and the tools you will rely on tomorrow are actively being built."

What we know is that the plug-ins and tools many creators depend on will continue to be supported. For now, NI and its IPs do not appear to be heading toward the fate of discontinued software such as Wizoo in the mid 2000s which was acquired by Digidesign (now Avid) or MakeMusic's notation software Finale in 2024.

And in many ways, this merger makes sense. Both inMusic and NI offer competing products (such as NI's DJ platform Traktor and inMusic's Denon DJ) while also sharing areas of collaboration. In 2025, inMusic and NI partnered to bring NKS integration to select Akai Pro and M-Audio hardware. Given the overlap in their product ecosystems, the acquisition could reshape everything (or at least a significant portion) of music production workflows in the years ahead.

As of today, there is no public information on the price or funding avenues for this acquisition. What is known, however, is that NI was facing significant financial challenges. According to some sources, "by late 2023, financial filings showed a £250 million debt load against £25 million in annual revenue." At time off audio, we are always wary of private takeovers in audio as they have not necessarily worked out historically due to overleveraging (Gibson and Philips, Native Instruments and iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Brainworx), but we hope that this partnership works for the benefit of musicians, engineers, and producers alike.

Spotify introduces AI credits... but why?

Spotify recently announced the rollout of its AI credits (beta) across the platform. This feature aims to inform listeners which parts of a song were AI-generated, including roles such as lyrics, vocals, instrumentals, and production. However, it is important to note that these disclosures are self-reported by the artist or publisher. Spotify states that "the absence of AI credits doesn't mean AI wasn't used on a song."

Back in April, Deezer reported that "nearly 75,000 AI tracks are uploaded every day." As far back as September 2025, Spotify stated that it had "invested massively in fighting spam over the past decade. In fact, in the past 12 months alone, a period marked by the explosion of generative AI tools, [they've] removed over 75 million spammy tracks from Spotify."

This type of AI labeling is not entirely new to the industry. Apple has also released its own labeling feature, called "transparency tags." However, like Spotify's system, this feature remains optional.

It appears that major streaming platforms are beginning to standardize how AI involvement in music is disclosed to listeners. The question then becomes: why are streaming platforms introducing these systems now?

We know for certain that more and more AI-generated tracks are being uploaded every day. It appears to come down to two main reasons. First, to prevent bad actors from releasing spam, AI slop, duplicated tracks, and manipulating SEO algorithms. Second, to gather more detailed information about how AI is being used in music creation.

Spotify states: "We're helping develop and will support the new industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits, developed through DDEX. This standard gives artists and rightsholders a way to clearly indicate where and how AI played a role in the creation of a track, whether that's AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production."

The fastest growing streamer is not Spotify or Apple...

It's YouTube Music.

For years, serious music listeners looked down on YouTube Music as just a secondary video perk. But according to data from Chartlex, YouTube Music has quietly become the fastest-growing major audio service in the industry – recently surpassing 125 million paid subscribers globally. In fact, YouTube Music is tied for the #2 spot of most paid monthly active users – right next to Tencent Music at roughly ~125 million paid active users. This is what the list currently looks like:

Spotify (290 million)
YouTube Music & Tencent Music (125 million)
Apple Music (100 million)
Amazon Music (82 million)
NetEase Cloud Music (50 million)

Important to note that some of the aforementioned numbers are based on third party estimates as not all platforms disclose their data.

Unfortunately, albeit an interesting headline and value proposition for consumers who enjoy both YouTube and music streaming, this is not a win for musicians and producers. For all the flack that Spotify gets for payouts, YouTube is even worse, paying out at half what Spotify pays. Spotify averages $0.003 – $0.005 per stream, and YouTube Music pays out $0.001 – $0.002 per stream. Additionally, YouTube Music is the only major streamer that does not have a lossless streaming feature.

So why are hundreds of millions of users flocking to it?

Convenience. Google packages YouTube Music directly with YouTube Premium. For listeners tired of paying for multiple subscriptions, getting ad-free video streaming and a massive music catalog under one bill is an easy sell.

However, as of 2025, YouTube also has "YouTube Premium Lite", which does not include YouTube Music. The data that YouTube discloses does not separate the two, so the fact of the matter is that YouTube Music might be a much smaller slice of the pie than they are letting on.

Nevertheless, the top two streaming platforms certainly showcase what users want: convenience and experience. YouTube has no lossless tier, Spotify has only just released one, and they are both winning due to the convenience factor. YouTube for its dual service, and Spotify for its user experience, playlists, and social platform. At the end of the day, convenience beats high fidelity audio when it comes to the listener – and if we consider that most people listen to music while commuting, it certainly explains why.