11/17/2025 – What if my story went something like this… Breaking  news. Will Preston is an AI artist. He types a prompt, sips a smoothiie, and wakes up with a number one album. No late nights, no cracked voice, no heartbreak, just clean code and instant classics.

Fun headline. Not my story, but fun nonetheless. 

The Latest Industry Plant

I’m sure you’ve heard about the new R&B superstar lighting up the music world this year. They release three songs a week. They never blow their voice out, never miss deadlines, never question their purpose, never lose sleep over a bridge that refuses to land. They are always ready. They never get tired. They never get sick. They don’t even need to do those agonizing vocal warm-ups.

And apparently, they’re the competition.

Welcome to the age of the AI artist.

But before we go on, reminisce with me… I’m nearly twenty years into a musical journey that has been exhilarating, unpredictable, exhausting, magical, and deeply human. I have no complaints. I’ve enjoyed it all, even overcoming the frustrations. My journey started in a living room glaring at stacks of music gold while Sunday dinner simmered in the kitchen. It runs through my grandmother’s record collection, filled with Aretha, Marvin, and Smokey stacked like sacred texts. It continued while in college at Tower Records on Tuesdays (music release day back then) when I’d spend my dining hall budget on CDs, then read the liner notes like homework. I’m the kid who made music for himself first, who grew an audience one believer at a time, who learned the indie grind by doing the glamorous and unglamorous work you don’t always see.

My story, like most creators, is the opposite of instant. So when I see an “artist” uploaded into existence overnight, my eyebrow naturally raises in wonderment.

Passable Is Not Personal

Today, a “producer” can instruct a computer program to make an R&B song like early 2000s neo-soul with modern production. Five minutes later you get something passable. But passable is not personal.

Personal is me pulling a Gladys Knight vinyl from a worn sleeve and wondering why that chord change hits the sweet spot in her voice. Personal is Tower Records on a Tuesday, breaking the plastic, reading who played what on track 7. Personal is scribbling lyrics in the middle of the night, then showing up to a session with a voice that sometimes gives less than perfect but is mine.

AI can imitate tone. It can mimic phrasing. It can predict patterns. But it cannot fall in love, survive heartbreak, lose faith, rediscover purpose, fall in love again, or stand on a stage with trembling hands and sing through nerves that make you question your audacity to even be standing there. 

And those are the things you hear in a real record. Even when you don’t realize it.

Innovation Is Welcome. Erasing Artists Is Not.

Make no mistake. AI will have a place in music. I am not anti-tech. Just like every other tool we once debated…drum machines, autotune, digital production, they all found a place.  AI will certainly help spark ideas, remove barriers for newcomers, and push the boundaries of production. It will open doors. And I’m here to champion that. But it should never erase the people who built the house. Use the tool if it serves the song. Do not sell the tool as the artist.

The Part AI Will Never Learn

Could AI make something that sounds like me? Probably. Could it recreate the college kid at Tower Records on Tuesdays, the grandma with the prized vinyl collection, the 3 a.m. lyric scraps, the indie grind, the collaborations, the joys and pains of love, the global family singing along from London to Tokyo? Nope.

Real artistry comes from choices that cost something. Artistry lives in the imperfections that make a voice feel like a person you know. No algorithm can replace a soul, and that is the part you are really hearing.

That kind of creation is not just skill. It is sacrifice… And sacrifice will always separate the artist from the algorithm.

-Will Preston

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Follow me on Instagram to explore my journey up close, and catch me across other socials too.  For music, updates, and more, visit www.willpreston.com.