AI agent artist RŌSIEN gets an SBS Inkigayo stage, and its makers say it will never betray fans

RŌSIEN isn’t a person, and on Sunday it’s on Korean TV anyway. SBS lists the generative AI artist on episode 1328 of Inkigayo, its weekly K-pop show, on October 25, 2026, next to IVE, BABYMONSTER and NCT WISH.

The songs are written by humans. The voice is AI. And the character fans talk to is an AI agent that its makers built on models such as Gemini and ChatGPT.

Cineplay reports RŌSIEN will perform “Tiga Tiga” with K-pop choreography, a rock-band setup and LED effects, then appear on ENA’s K-POP UP Chart Show on October 27.

What’s human and what’s AI behind RŌSIEN

RŌSIEN (Korean name 로진) comes from 2 companies. UYU MEDIA LAB is run by Hong Jin-woo, a director, video producer and composer, and Studio Myeongbulheojeon is run by a manager with 30 years in the business. Planning took about 8 months and started from 7 city-pop demos Hong made, Ilgan Sports reported on October 20.

The debut single, “I Hope It Reaches Your Eardrums”, came out on August 19, 2026. Hong Jin-woo and Nam Ji-hoon wrote the lyrics and the music, and Nam Ji-hoon arranged it, per Khan. The second single, “Tiga Tiga” (티가 티가 나나요), followed on September 19 as a hyperpop track.

The AI side is the voice and the persona. RŌSIEN runs on an AI agent system “based on large multimodal models such as Gemini and ChatGPT”, per Sports Donga, and the makers claim it answers in about 3 seconds in more than 47 languages.

No outlet names the tool behind the singing voice or the music. Hong admitted the prompting is messy: prompt outputs “come out random,” he told Ilgan Sports (translated from Korean), and for the follow-up single they kept adding the latest tech until 4 or 5 days before release.

Is RŌSIEN the first AI artist on a K-pop music show?

No, and the difference is worth getting right. MAVE:, a virtual girl group from Netmarble and Kakao Entertainment, performed on MBC’s Show! Music Core in January 2023, and the Korea Herald described it as “a virtual girl group with four AI-generated singers” (via Daum).

PLAVE went further and won music shows in March 2024, starting with Show Champion on March 6. But real performers drive PLAVE’s avatars with motion capture and sing with their own voices.

Netflix’s animated group Huntr/X played The Tonight Show in 2025, with human singers behind the characters too. What’s new with RŌSIEN is the package: a solo act from a small team, sold as an AI agent you can talk to, with 2 named human songwriters behind the songs and an AI voice singing them.

How RŌSIEN’s Inkigayo stage fits Korea’s AI music rules in 2026

RŌSIEN lands in a Korea that is arguing about AI music right now. On October 14, Meomuru’s “The Adult I Dreamed Of” reached No. 3 on Melon’s Top 100 with a Suno-generated vocal, and its creator still collects no songwriting royalties for it.

KOMCA, the society that pays Korean songwriters, adopted rules for AI-assisted works in August and then withdrew them 22 days later. So the rules for registering a song with human writers and an AI voice, which is exactly what RŌSIEN releases, are back in limbo.

Then there’s labelling. Korea’s AI Basic Act has required generative AI operators to label their output since January 22, 2026, with fines of up to KRW 30 million after a grace period of at least a year, per Cooley. Whether that duty reaches a broadcaster putting an AI singer on a Sunday music show hasn’t been tested.

Why RŌSIEN’s makers say an AI star will never betray fans

Studio Myeongbulheojeon’s CEO explained the bet to Ilgan Sports in one sentence, and it’s about human stars.

“

AI was the best answer to the betrayal and hurt, the huge upkeep costs and the lawsuit risk.

The project’s tagline is “never betrays fans or people.” And the makers say they keep none of the money: all of RŌSIEN’s fees and revenue are donated, because a virtual artist can’t open a bank account, with the first payout coming “soon.” China’s AI singer Yuri went the other way, with a Beijing digital ID and a wallet that belongs to the company that runs her.

A Christmas carol is planned for December, and an AI drama after that. Reaction so far is mixed, with a small fandom forming next to plenty of anti-AI comments, and Hong says the team answers the hate comments in character.