ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus continues to embrace groundbreaking technology. According to Variety, the Swedish hitmaker revealed he is writing a new musical with the assistance of AI during a talk held at SXSW London on Wednesday, June 4th.
“Right now, I’m writing a musical, assisted by AI,” Ulvaeus said during the chat, adding that he was “three-quarters” of the way through the creative process. The currently untitled project serves as the follow-up to the group’s innovative hologram-based “ABBA Voyage” concert series.
Ulvaeus continued by elaborating on how AI can bolster the songwriting process: “It is such a great tool. It is like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame. It is really an extension of your mind. You have access to things that you didn’t think of before.”
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However, Ulvaeus also acknowledged the current limitations of AI, stating that it is “lousy at [writing a whole song]” and “very bad at lyrics.” As such, he believes the technology primarily shines in assisting artists to break through writer’s block.
“You can prompt a lyric you have written about something, and you’re stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style,” he explained. “You can ask it, how would you extend? Where would you go from here? It usually comes out with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea.”
This embrace of AI comes with caution, as Ulvaeus is president of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), which published a study in December 2024 suggesting that music creators could lose nearly a quarter of their income to AI by 2028.
“AI has the power to unlock new and exciting opportunities — but we have to accept that, if badly regulated, generative AI also has the power to cause great damage to human creators, to their careers and livelihoods,” he said at the time of the study’s release. “This will be determined in large part by the choices made by policy makers… It’s critical that we get these regulations right, protect creators’ rights and help develop an AI environment that safeguards human creativity and culture.”
Elsewhere during the SXSW talk, Ulvaeus noted that he and fellow ABBA member Benny Andersson were “always on the lookout” for “the latest thing” to aid their creative process, from their first Mini Moog synthesizer to being early adopters of digital recording machines.
The AI-assisted musical is the latest project from Ulvaeus’ partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, the company behind “ABBA Voyage.” The virtual residency kicked off at London’s custom-built ABBA Arena in 2022 and is scheduled to run through January 2026. Get tickets here.
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