Steve on AI in music performance

In this special excerpt from a full conversation that David O’Hara from RealMusic.ai had with Steve’s longtime collaborator Dr. Bill Evans, Steve himself joins the discussion to react to something unexpected.

Using AI, Bill was able to recreate a missing portion of one of Steve’s live performances, filling in a section that was never properly recorded. When Steve heard it back, he couldn’t tell where the original ended and the AI reconstruction began. From there, the conversation opens up into something bigger.

They explore what it means to use AI at the performance level, where it can restore and enhance what actually happened, and where it still falls short. While AI can replicate elements of style and sound, it struggles with context, feel, and the real-time interaction that happens between musicians.

Steve shares his perspective as a lifelong performer, comparing AI to a powerful technology that can be used for both creative and destructive ends. This is not about AI creating music from scratch. It is about what happens when AI steps into the space of human performance, and what that means for musicians going forward.

More about engineer/producer/audio scientist Bill Evans and his PRISM AI technology that he invented and developed can be found on his website. PRISM stands for Performance Restoration and Isolated Structural Modeling. It reimagines music production for human musicians.

Technically, it virtualizes every aspect of sound—even the audio, itself. Creatively, it brings artists closer to their intentions, makes performances more individual, and amplifies authenticity. While conventional GenAI makes music more generic, PRISM makes artists more personally expressive.