Not every AI music story has to end with someone yelling about robots stealing jobs.
Boy George has become the latest artist to experiment with artificial intelligence, but instead of generating songs from scratch or cloning voices without permission, he’s using the technology to take ownership of his own legacy.
The Culture Club frontman has launched a new music-tech venture called Artist Included, kicking things off with a brand-new version of the band’s 1983 smash hit, Karma Chameleon.
At first glance, it might sound like another nostalgic re-recording. In reality, it’s closer to the strategy that helped Taylor Swift regain control of her catalogue through the Taylor’s Version releases.
The motivation is simple: ownership.
Like many artists who signed record deals in the 1970s and ’80s, Boy George doesn’t own the original master recording of Karma Chameleon. That means when the song is licensed for a film, television show or advertising campaign, much of the financial benefit goes elsewhere.
By creating a new master recording, George now owns this version outright. Future licensing opportunities can flow through him rather than the original rights holders.
The interesting part is how he got there.
Rather than using AI to fabricate a younger version of himself, George re-recorded the song in a studio as he is today. The AI was then trained exclusively on his own archival recordings and demos from the early 1980s.
The technology wasn’t used to create a performance. It was used to reshape the tone of an existing performance, allowing his modern vocal take to resemble the voice fans first heard more than four decades ago.
The result, according to George, sounds like “another take from that original session.”
“The goal was never to replace the original — it was to celebrate it and let the song keep evolving,” he said. “It’s about giving people back the right to have a say.”
It’s a notable distinction in an era where AI music remains one of the industry’s most divisive topics. While artists and labels continue to battle unauthorised voice cloning and copyright concerns, Artist Included is positioning AI as a tool for creators rather than a replacement for them.
The company, founded by George alongside manager Paul “PK” Kemsley and attorney Jeremy Rosen, plans to help other heritage artists revisit their catalogues using the same model.
For veteran musicians, that could mean more control over licensing, streaming revenue and the future use of their most famous songs. For fans, it raises an intriguing question: if technology can faithfully recreate the sound of an artist in their prime, what does a “new” recording actually mean?
Whatever the answer, Boy George may have just offered one of the clearest examples yet of how AI could work with artists instead of against them.
