Trilok, the influencer-backed AI rock band, launches in India
Collective Artists Network has created a new AI-generated band that hasn’t been warmly received by everyone.
A new AI-generated band is causing a stir in India’s independent music scene. Trilok, created by Collective Artists Network, is a four-piece “spiritual rock” group made up entirely of digital avatars. Their debut reworks the devotional track Achyutam Keshavam, blending bhajans with glossy visuals and an algorithm-friendly sound.
The band members – Arjun Varma, Aditya Rao, Karan Tripathi and Viraj Rajan – are all fictional characters, each with backstories and stylised “personalities”. According to a press release quoted in Music Ally, Trilok is designed to be “playlistable, memed, debated, and experienced with multi-format storytelling.”
That debate began immediately. Rolling Stone India’s Instagram post about the launch was met with hundreds of critical comments, mostly from frustrated independent artists. While the song is devotional, the pushback came from across genres – many musicians feeling that AI projects like Trilok take up valuable space and attention on already crowded platforms.
The backlash reflects growing anxiety in the artist community around AI-generated music and, more recently, AI music groups. The phenomenon is becoming more and more prevalent, with one in ten new tracks uploaded to Deezer each day may be AI-generated. And Trilok isn’t even the first AI band in India – Aishan and Ruh, launched earlier this year, though failed to sustain listenership despite major media backing.
Trilok’s creators hope to avoid that fate by enlisting celebrities like Vijay Deverakonda and Bhuvan Bam to promote the project. The song passed 10,000 YouTube views and 1,000 Spotify plays in its first week.
While the band’s creators are upfront that Trilok is AI-generated, there’s little public detail about the specific tools used or how the music was made. Spotify and YouTube also don’t label the song as AI-created — a growing concern in the industry.
Of course, the concept of an AI band isn’t entirely new – it follows in the footsteps of projects like The Velvet Sundown, which similarly blended AI-generated music with digital storytelling and strategic marketing while causing a stir.
For India’s indie artists, and indeed artists all over the world, the rise of AI bands raises tough questions: Who gets heard, and who gets pushed aside? As more projects like Trilok emerge, the conversation about authenticity, visibility, and ethics in music is only getting louder.