Imogen Heap speaking during Lisbon’s Web Summit in 2024. Photo Credit: Web Summit
SoundCloud has inked a partnership agreement with Imogen Heap’s Auracles, which is joining the music platform’s Benefits Partner Program.
The involved companies just recently confirmed their deal in a formal release, after SoundCloud head Eliah Seton and Heap discussed the integration during last month’s Web Summit event. Coinciding with the official disclosure, the November sit down’s audio has become available on SoundCloud.
Billed as a “comprehensive and forward-thinking suite of tools,” Auracles is said to afford artists one-stop control over metadata, stems, press materials, contact info, and a whole lot else via its “sovereign digital ID.”
Capitalizing on this unique identifier, professionals can then manage (and, if necessary, modify) credits, discover other verified talent, opt out of AI training, and more, according to the appropriate website.
However, as the same site acknowledges – “[w]e’ve built the solution, now we need the industry to integrate” – widespread adoption is an essential ingredient in the recipe for largescale results.
Enter the newly unveiled pact, which is said to be “making it easier for artists to” connect their SoundCloud and Auracles accounts, import music into Auracles, and publish back to SoundCloud from Auracles.
Meanwhile, describing these components as “just the start,” the entities are preparing to reveal additional elements of the union “in the coming months.”
“Together we can build this beginning, this strong beginning,” Heap added during the Web Summit talk. “[You] have so many people on your platform. And Auracles – it’s hard to want to start it, in a way. To put all your information in.
“Because there isn’t much operability, interoperability, yet with Auracles. It really takes a game changer, [a] big service such as yourself to adopt the idea, that hopefully others will follow. And then we can create the data layer that we need,” the two-time Grammy winner proceeded.
All that said, there’s a bit more to the union than improved metadata and smoother artist-to-artist communication.
Heap is an AI proponent, and Seton, whose company encountered training-related terms pushback earlier in 2025, discussed Auracles from the perspective of “making the AI work for you, and the ways that can then delight your fans.”
“What we share is a view that if we have the right legal framework, the right commercial framework, and especially the right tools, that AI can unlock a massive amount of potential for artists,” said Seton. “We really believe that generative AI music tools will be the great democratizer of music creation.
“To be a music creator historically is really, really hard and really, really expensive. And AI tools are putting music creation in all of our pockets. … And that’s increasing the number of music creators on the planet,” he proceeded.
Of course, there’s still much to discuss about the precise definition of “music creator” and the unprecedented technology’s impact on proper art.
In any event, SoundCloud mentioned the Auracles agreement’s superfan angle as well – “[s]treaming alone isn’t enough…for fans seeking deeper connection” – and Seton explored AI’s ability to help existing music find new listeners.
“AI is also an opportunity for artists, once they’ve created the music, to promote it, market it, distribute it, and find ways to get heard. And that’s one of the things we’re focused on the SoundCloud platform, is finding artists and their new music fans using AI,” Seton indicated.
