Jimmy Iovine says there are 'a lot of closet AI producers', then names the least closeted one in music

Jimmy Iovine came out fully in favour of AI music tools in the New York Times interview published on August 23, 2026, alongside Dr. Dre, who confirmed in the same sitting that he uses AI. The Interscope Records co-founder said he is “very pro-AI in music creation” and added a line with no hedge in it at all: “I don’t see the downside at all.”

Then he made a claim about his peers. There are, Iovine said, “a lot of closet AI producers out there.” Dre agreed. “They’re using it, they just don’t want to admit it.” The example Iovine reached for was Timbaland.

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There will be some crappy music. There's crappy music now. In the studio, when gifted people have AI, they're going to make better records.

Timbaland is not hiding anything, he runs an AI record label

The closet metaphor collapses on the name Iovine picked. Timbaland joined Suno as a paid strategic advisor in October 2024 with a public role in product and creative direction. He premiered his single “Love Again” on the platform and ran a $100,000 AI remix contest on top of it.

In June 2025 he launched Stage Zero, an AI entertainment company he co-founded with Rocky Mudaliar and Zayd Portillo. Its first signing was TaTa Taktumi, an AI pop act built with Suno, which Timbaland markets as “A-Pop.” TaTa signed with Ne-Yo’s Pacific Music Group in March 2026. Our Artist Index entry on Timbaland logs his disclosure stance as fully disclosed, with every claim sourced.

A man who spends ten hours a day in a generative model, advises the company that builds it, and launched a label for AI artists is the loudest adopter in the business. Iovine reached for the one producer whose AI use has its own press cycle, which weakens the point he was making rather than proving it.

Does the “closet” framing describe a real problem?

Something real does sit underneath the bad example. Producers do use these tools quietly, and the ones who get outed later pay for it. Fenix Flexin denied AI on his Billboard hit for months before the tool’s own detector identified the track. Compare that to Tyga naming Suno on his $TARFACE album before anyone asked. Same tool, two outcomes, and the difference was who wrote the sentence first.

Iovine’s other claim needs more resistance. He put the backlash down to tech companies having terrible public relations. Songwriters suing over catalogs used without a licence are not waiting on a better press release. Apple Music building “Made With AI” labels and Spotify shipping AI Persona badges are platforms responding to a rights problem, not a messaging one.