Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kim, Yewon, Brade, Stephen, Wang, Alexander, Zhou, David, Kim, Haven, Wang, Bill, Lee, Sung-Ju, Garcia, Hugo F Flores, Huang, Cheng-Zhi Anna, Donahue, Chris
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05064
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910012146712576
author Kim, Yewon
Brade, Stephen
Wang, Alexander
Zhou, David
Kim, Haven
Wang, Bill
Lee, Sung-Ju
Garcia, Hugo F Flores
Huang, Cheng-Zhi Anna
Donahue, Chris
author_facet Kim, Yewon
Brade, Stephen
Wang, Alexander
Zhou, David
Kim, Haven
Wang, Bill
Lee, Sung-Ju
Garcia, Hugo F Flores
Huang, Cheng-Zhi Anna
Donahue, Chris
contents Live music provides a uniquely rich setting for studying creativity and interaction due to its spontaneous nature. The pursuit of live music agents--intelligent systems supporting real-time music performance and interaction--has captivated researchers across HCI, AI, and computer music for decades, and recent advancements in AI suggest unprecedented opportunities to evolve their design. However, the interdisciplinary nature of music has led to fragmented development across research communities, hindering effective communication and collaborative progress. In this work, we bring together perspectives from these diverse fields to map the current landscape of live music agents. Based on our analysis of 184 systems across both academic literature and video, we develop a comprehensive design space that categorizes dimensions spanning usage contexts, interactions, technologies, and ecosystems. By highlighting trends and gaps in live music agents, our design space offers researchers, designers, and musicians a structured lens to understand existing systems and shape future directions in real-time human-AI music co-creation. We release our annotated systems as a living artifact at https://live-music-agents.github.io.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_05064
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Design Space for Live Music Agents
Kim, Yewon
Brade, Stephen
Wang, Alexander
Zhou, David
Kim, Haven
Wang, Bill
Lee, Sung-Ju
Garcia, Hugo F Flores
Huang, Cheng-Zhi Anna
Donahue, Chris
Human-Computer Interaction
Live music provides a uniquely rich setting for studying creativity and interaction due to its spontaneous nature. The pursuit of live music agents--intelligent systems supporting real-time music performance and interaction--has captivated researchers across HCI, AI, and computer music for decades, and recent advancements in AI suggest unprecedented opportunities to evolve their design. However, the interdisciplinary nature of music has led to fragmented development across research communities, hindering effective communication and collaborative progress. In this work, we bring together perspectives from these diverse fields to map the current landscape of live music agents. Based on our analysis of 184 systems across both academic literature and video, we develop a comprehensive design space that categorizes dimensions spanning usage contexts, interactions, technologies, and ecosystems. By highlighting trends and gaps in live music agents, our design space offers researchers, designers, and musicians a structured lens to understand existing systems and shape future directions in real-time human-AI music co-creation. We release our annotated systems as a living artifact at https://live-music-agents.github.io.
title A Design Space for Live Music Agents
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05064