Something new happened in jazz. Finally — for the first time in a generation, since Miles Davis showed the world that jazz could reinvent itself without losing its soul, the genre has been waiting for its next genuine disruption. This July, it arrives in Montreux.
A World First on the Shore of Lake Geneva
Running alongside the 60th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino Barrière Montreux will host AI.LOVE.JAZZ — the world’s first global AI jazz music contest and live event. Two evenings. One stage. And the very real possibility that you will spend the rest of your life telling people you were there.
Sixty Thousand Tracks a Day — and Nobody in Charge
Here is the uncomfortable truth the music industry has been quietly ignoring. Sixty thousand AI-assisted tracks hit streaming platforms every single day. Most of them are, frankly, forgettable. A handful are extraordinary. And right now, nobody — not the labels, not the festivals, not the gatekeepers in their glass-fronted offices — is doing anything serious about finding them, celebrating them, or setting the standard for what this music can actually be.
AI.LOVE.JAZZ exists precisely because someone had to. Not to replace musicians — that argument is as tired as it is wrong — but to recognise that AI has become the most powerful new instrument in the creative toolkit since the electric guitar. And like the electric guitar, it deserves a proper stage.
Riviera Café is next to the famous Queen Studio
The Search That Started It All
From 1 April to 15 June 2026, the contest opened globally across the five genres that define the Montreux soul — Jazz, Soul, Funk, Blues, and Melodic Rock. The brief was gloriously simple: any tool, one original vision. No rules about how you got there. Only rules about whether the result was any good. The Top 50 finalists are announced on 30 June. After that, Montreux takes over.
AI Music Played by Live Band: Inversion of the Reality
On 9 July, the Top 10 shortlisted compositions are performed live. The audience hears them before the rest of the world does — which means everyone in that room is not just a listener, they are a witness. On 10 July comes the Gala: Spanish ensemble Patax on stage, contest winners performed by a live human ensemble, and a new genre formally announcing itself to anyone paying attention. This is not a showcase. This is a coronation.
Where the Serious People Come to Argue Properly
Running alongside both evenings is TEK — a terrace programme perched above Lake Geneva, where executives, lawyers, technologists and artists gather for roundtables on AI, intellectual property, and the future of music. No PowerPoints, no hollow keynotes. Just the Swiss Innovation Corridor and the global music industry in the same room, finally having the conversation that should have started three years ago.
The event is backed by the Crypto Valley Association, supported by Innovaud — the innovation and investment agency of the Canton of Vaud — and sponsored by Swiss fintech YouHodler.
The Four People Mad Enough to Build This
Ilya Volkov
Alex Chapsky
Luis Medina Encisо
Doroteya Nancheva
Behind AI.LOVE.JAZZ are four founders who looked at the chaos of the AI music revolution and decided to organise it — at least the part that matters most. Ilya Volkov and Alex Chapsky as co-founders, Luis Medina Enciso as Concert Director, and Doroteya Nancheva as Growth Director. “AI is not replacing musicians,” says Volkov. “AI is becoming the orchestra. Behind every track stands a human.” Chapsky, with the confidence of someone who has clearly thought about nothing else for two years, puts it even better: “What matters is not the tool, but the idea, the taste, and the emotional charge behind it.”
Quite right. It has always been about that.
The Right Stage. The Right Moment. No Excuses.
Since Claude Nobs founded the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967, this particular stretch of Lake Geneva shoreline has been where music history happens. Queen built a studio. Miles Davis came back for two decades. David Bowie passed through. The Casino Barrière balustrade still carries the first four notes of Smoke on the Water, etched permanently into the metal by people who understood that some moments deserve to be marked.
The 60th edition of the festival is exactly the right moment to add a new chapter. And the people in that room on 9 and 10 July will spend the rest of their lives saying they were there when it began.
The Music Never Stops
AI.LOVE.JAZZ Radio — the world’s first dedicated AI jazz station — is already broadcasting 24/7 at ailovejazz.com. The year’s most distinctive creators, in permanent rotation, long after the Montreux lights come down.
A limited number of partnership positions remain for the inaugural edition. Enquiries: hello@ailovejazz.com
