Dr. Dre Says the Only People Who See AI as a Threat Are Those ‘Who Have Trouble Creating’

Dr. Dre, founder of Aftermath Records and co-founder of Apple's Beats, said in a New York Times interview that only people 'who have trouble creating' see AI as a threat, comparing it to the drum machine or synthesizers as a new tool for creativity. The 61-year-old producer, who was named to Forbes' 2026 Billionaires list with an estimated net worth of $1 billion, said he uses AI 'as a tool to see what it would do with what I just did.'

Dr. Dre https://variety.com/t/dr-dre/ , the legendary hip-hop producer and performer, sees AI as another tool in the music-tech toolbox akin to synthesizers — and asserted that only people “who have trouble creating” are afraid of AI. Dre, founder of the Aftermath record label and co-founder and CEO of Apple’s Beats, said that he doesn’t see AI “as a threat,” in an interview https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/business/jimmy-iovine-dr-dre-beats-usc.html alongside his longtime business partner Jimmy Iovine, which was published Sunday by the New York Times. “I think the only people that see it as a threat are the people who have trouble creating.” “I had a discussion with a few people a few days ago,” Dre said. “They were against AI and I’m like, ‘OK, you sound like the person that would have been against the drum machine when it came out.’ Or synthesizers, right? It’s a new tool for creativity. Some people are afraid of learning new things.” Popular on Variety Dre said he’s using AI tech in music “as a tool to see what it would do with what I just did.” Iovine added, “So is Timbaland — another brilliant producer. By the way, there’s a lot of closet AI producers out there.” Asked what he most recently asked an AI chatbot, Dre said his query was, “How do you put on muscle and lose fat at the same time? That’s it.” Dre, 61, was named to Forbes’ 2026 Billionaires list https://variety.com/2026/music/news/dr-dre-finally-a-billionaire-forbes-1236683558/ , joining the publication’s rankings for the first time, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion. In 2014, he and Iovine sold Beats by Dre to Apple https://variety.com/2014/biz/news/apple-seals-3-billion-deal-to-acquire-beats-music-and-electronics-1201195267/ in a deal worth more than $3 billion. Dre in 2023 sold a collection of music income streams and other assets https://variety.com/2023/music/news/dr-dre-selling-catalog-universal-shamrock-1235486661/ to Shamrock Holdings and Universal Music Group for more than $200 million. In the music industry, AI remains controversial and the subject of ongoing legal disputes. For example, last week indie music publisher Round Hill Music sued Suno and Anthropic https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/round-hill-music-sues-suno-anthropic-copyright-infringement-1236837467/ , accusing the two AI companies of copyright infringement by illegally scraping hundreds of its songs to train their models without permission. Suno has been sued by all three of the major labels — Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music — though it settled with WMG last year. In addition, Suno recently struck a licensing agreement with BMG which sued Anthropic this year for allegedly using its recordings to train AI models in what it called a scheme of “widespread and systematic infringement” . Meanwhile, Apple Music said it will begin labeling songs derived from AI platforms later this year, following Spotify’s decision https://variety.com/2026/music/news/spotify-strikes-back-against-ai-artists-ai-persona-label-1236831790/ to label the profiles of artists that appear to be AI-generated as “AI Personas.” Last month, a coalition including the RIAA, IFPI, the Grammys and SAG-AFTRA united to advocate for a new industry labeling program for AI-produced songs https://variety.com/2026/music/news/ifpi-riaa-grammys-sag-aftra-labeling-program-ai-music-1236806377/ similar to labels flagging explicit content. Corbin Bolies contributed to this article.