SIQA AI Music Awards 2026 full winners list: Xania Monet wins 4, Ava Bently and Slime Dot take 2 each

Xania Monet won 4 awards at the first SIQA AI Music Awards, more than any other act. She took AI Song of the Year for “How Was I Supposed To Know?”, AI Artist of the Year, AI Album of the Year for “Unfolded” and Best AI R&B Artist.

Ava Bently and Slime Dot won 2 each. The show ran on November 13, 2026 at The Mayan, a 1927 theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, and SIQA has now published its official winners page.

I was in the room for it, and Marcus Lawrence and I presented 2 of the awards on stage. I sit on SIQA’s Creative Advisory Council, but I wasn’t involved in planning or running the show.

Every category is below as a slider with all 5 nominees. The winner sits first with a Winner label, and you can swipe or use the arrows to see who they beat. If an artist has a profile in my Artist Index, the card links straight to it.

SIQA AI Music Awards 2026 General Field winners: Xania Monet takes Song, Artist and Album of the Year

Xania Monet went into the night with 5 nominations and won 4 of them. AI Song of the Year was the last award handed out, and it went to “How Was I Supposed To Know?”.

Xania is the AI artist Telisha “Nikki” Jones built from her own poems. She got SIQA’s first AI artist plaque back in June, and Nikki sat on my brand panel at the SIQA Summit the day before the show.

On the red carpet, she told Reuters how AI artists connect with fans, in footage aired by DawnNews English: “So with AI artists, it’s like we’re digging into a deeper version of our fans and it’s making them connect.”

AI Song of the Year winner

Winner: Xania Monet, “How Was I Supposed To Know?”.

AI Artist of the Year winner

Winner: Xania Monet.

AI Album of the Year winner

Winner: Xania Monet, “Unfolded”.

AI Producer of the Year winner

Winner: DJ Shawn Q.

SIQA AI Music Awards 2026 artist and performance winners

Tresure & Tru won Best AI Group, and Solomon Ray won Best AI Music Video for “Seated”. For the music video award, the cards show a still from each video instead of the cover.

Best AI Group winner

Winner: Tresure & Tru.

Best AI Music Video winner

Winner: Solomon Ray, “Seated”.

Best AI Collab winner

Winner: DJ Shawn Q, “No chains left feat. J. Frequency”.

SIQA AI Music Awards 2026 classification winners: the 2 awards I presented

These 2 categories don’t sort songs by genre. They sort them by how AI was used, following SIQA’s classification framework.

• AI-Assisted means a person did at least one core creative job, like writing the lyrics or singing, and AI did the rest.
• Human+AI Hybrid means the artist cloned their own voice, so the vocal comes from AI but the voice is still theirs.

Marcus Lawrence, who writes the AI music culture newsletter Zinstrel, presented both with me.

I closed the AI-Assisted speech with this line:

“

So before you write something cruel under a song online, think about how it was made. Because you might be reading somebody's diary.

Best AI-Assisted Song went to The Second Voice for “Let Me Be”. The song held No. 1 on Billboard’s U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart for 6 weeks in a row, and the producer behind The Second Voice accepted by video, wearing a mask.

Best Human+AI Hybrid Song went to Aries Ivory for “Influence” featuring Eric Bellinger. Eric came up on stage, and his speech had one of my favorite lines of the night, filmed by PlAIground: “Before there was AI, I don’t think there were any rules when it came to making music. So just because there’s AI, I don’t think the rules should start right now.”

Best AI-Assisted Song winner

Winner: The Second Voice, “Let Me Be”.

Best Human+AI Hybrid Song winner

Winner: Aries Ivory, “Influence (feat. Eric Bellinger)”.

SIQA AI Music Awards 2026 genre song winners

The one award Xania Monet lost was Best AI R&B Song. That went to Olivia B. Moore for “Love Notes”, her biggest track with more than 8.9 million Spotify plays. Olivia also performed on the night, with the live band behind her.

Here’s what else stood out to me in the 10 genre song awards:

• Gospel. Sheena Taylor won Best AI Gospel Song with “I Denounce You Satan”, ahead of Aria Blu and Proph3ci.
• A tie. Best AI International Song has 2 winners: Colourfull4life for “Waltz of Love C4L” and LIX MARCEL for the French-language “Nos lèvres sont scellées”.
• The fun ones. Astrazit won Best AI Comedic Song with “Butter My Biscuit (Cooking Love)”, MaxVerse won Best AI Musical Theatre Song and Tammy Taylor won Best AI Jazz Song.

Best AI R&B Song winner

Winner: Olivia B. Moore, “Love Notes”.

Best AI Country Song winner

Winner: Ava Bently, “Back to Tennessee”.

Best AI Gospel Song winner

Winner: Sheena Taylor, “I Denounce You Satan”.

Best AI Pop Song winner

Winner: Bijou Nicole, “Love Yourself First”.

Best AI Rock/Alt Song winner

Winner: VANYRA X, “Break the Pattern”.

Best AI Hip-Hop Song winner

Winner: Slime Dot, “Big Slime”.

Best AI International Song winners

Winners (tie): Colourfull4life, “Waltz of Love C4L” and LIX MARCEL, “Nos lèvres sont scellées”.

Best AI Comedic Song winner

Winner: Astrazit, “Butter My Biscuit (Cooking Love)”.

Best AI Musical Theatre Song winner

Winner: MaxVerse, “light as A-I-R”.

Best AI Jazz Song winner

Winner: Tammy Taylor, “Sunshine”.

SIQA AI Music Awards 2026 genre artist winners

Ava Bently and Slime Dot came in with 6 nominations each, the most of anyone. Both won the song and the artist award in their own genre: country for Ava Bently, hip-hop for Slime Dot.

Ava was on my brand panel too. In the same Reuters red-carpet footage, she had a short answer for people who don’t like AI music: “If you don’t like it, turn the channel or listen to something else.”

Slime Dot’s 2 wins say a lot about hip-hop in AI music. In SIQA’s Q1 2026 report, hip-hop made up 10.9% of submissions but held only 1% of chart slots. The voters clearly saw something the chart didn’t.

Rock split 2 ways. VANYRA X won the song award, and Rebel Redeemed 316 won Best AI Rock/Alt Artist. Rebel Redeemed 316 also took the photos you see in this article (thank you!).

Best AI R&B Artist winner

Winner: Xania Monet.

Best AI Country Artist winner

Winner: Ava Bently.

Best AI Gospel Artist winner

Winner: Aria Blu.

Best AI Pop Artist winner

Winner: Nicola Nicoletti.

Best AI Rock/Alt Artist winner

Winner: Rebel Redeemed 316.

Best AI Hip-Hop Artist winner

Winner: Slime Dot.

SIQA Off the Charts Spotlight Award 2026: Malvia Sol

Malvia Sol won the Off the Charts Spotlight Award. SIQA gives it to an artist who stood out on its Off the Charts Live AI Music Series, and it’s the one award the SIQA team picks itself, so there’s no list of nominees for it.

How SIQA picked the AI Music Awards 2026 winners

Almost every winner was picked by AI artists themselves. Only verified artists in the SIQA Registry could vote, and nobody could vote for their own work.

More than 2,000 submissions came in. SIQA’s review team cut crowded categories to a shortlist of 20, the verified artists voted 5 nominees per category, and then voted again for the winner. My nominees article has the full review criteria.

One more trophy went out before the show. At the SIQA Summit on November 12, SIQA gave its first Visionary Award to will.i.am, who told AI artists to own the word “slop” the way punk owned its insult. I wrote that up in AI Music Briefing #28.

SIQA’s president Timirah James, her sister Tamia James and April, SIQA’s executive assistant, pulled this off with a small team. On stage, Timirah said it plainly: “You know, we built SIQA for moments like this.”