One in four new K-pop acts of 2026 is virtual, a critic counts, as an AI vocal reaches No. 3 on Melon

Thirteen of the 55 idol-type acts that debuted in South Korea between January and October 2026 are virtual, according to a column published on October 16, 2026 in The Korea Daily. The critic Lim Hee-yun puts the share at 23.6% and calls 2026 a likely watershed year for what he describes as the virtualisation of K-pop.

The figure comes from his own tally, which the column does not list name by name. It lands in the same week as another first on the country's biggest streaming chart.

A count by one critic, with no list attached

Lim writes a music column for the paper, and the number is his: "according to the author's direct investigation," the column says, 13 teams or soloists out of 55 idol-type singers, groups and soloists included. He does not publish the 13 names, and he does not say where the line sits between a virtual group and an AI singer. His examples mix both kinds.

One of them is Sleeq, an AI singer who debuted in July. According to the column, her worldview is that of a "future entity created by AI" who comes to the human world through fans cast as "summoners". Her production company told the author that AI is used for the music and the videos, and also to analyse the posts fans upload in order to decide what she does next.

That last detail is worth pausing on. The audience is not only the buyer here. Its posts become the material from which the next move of the act is chosen.

Lim is a pop music critic and music consultant who sits on the selection committee of the Korean Music Awards. He is also open about his own tools: the column notes, in a parenthesis, that he used Claude instead of Naver, Google or the National Assembly Library reading room to search for information, and wonders aloud whether he owes Anthropic a share of his script fee. His column is signed commentary, not an industry census, and the 23.6% should be read that way until someone publishes a list to check it against.

What made the field attractive

The column names the commercial success of PLAVE as the first background. PLAVE is a five-member virtual boy group formed by the company Vlast, which debuted in 2023. According to the column, it sold more than 1 million copies of a single album in 2025 and played Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.

The Korea Portal, a Seoul-based news site, adds that PLAVE's fourth mini-album, Caligo Pt.2, moved 1.25 million copies in its first week in April 2026, the third straight release of the group to clear a million in its first week. The same report says the album charted on both the Billboard 200 and the Billboard Artist 100.

On October 13, 2026, all five songs of PLAVE's new mini-album held the top five places on Melon, as one of our earlier briefs reported. Money has followed the proof of demand. Several companies that produce virtual singers received billions of won in venture capital this year, the column says, citing the industry. The column gives two more reasons. The first is cost and risk: a virtual act offers high cost-effectiveness and low risk to a label. The second is a shortage of human recruits. A mid-sized label executive, identified only as Mr. D, told the author that the number of male trainees has plummeted in recent years, as talented young people prefer YouTube and influencer careers over what he describes as years of grind in the idol system.

The pipeline is also widening abroad. Hypeverse, a five-member virtual group made by Philandart Studio, released an English-language single on October 7, 2026 with Universal Music Korea handling distribution.

An AI vocal at No. 3 on Melon

The second story of the week is a song, not an act. "Have You Become the Adult You Dreamed of?" by the creator Meomuru (spelled Momeuru in The Korea Daily) was released in June and reached No. 3 on Melon's TOP100 on October 13, 2026, according to the Korean business paper Edaily. It had been in the high teens only days earlier.

Edaily calls it the first time a song with AI vocals has reached the top ranks of a chart where popular idols and top-tier singers compete. The Korea Times reported that on Wednesday, October 14, the song was also No. 2 on Genie Music and on YouTube Music.

The human share of the work is stated plainly. Meomuru wrote the lyrics and directed the concept and production, and the vocals were generated with Suno, an AI music platform. "To me, AI is a modern instrument and a partner that helps bring my imagination into reality," Meomuru wrote in the description of the YouTube channel, as quoted by WION, an Indian news outlet.

The tool is cheap.

Edaily puts the Suno Pro plan at about 12,000 won a month, and quotes a composer who says almost no composer these days goes without using Suno, whether for 10% or for 100% of a track.

Reception is split, and the column gives the numbers. As of October 14 the song ranked 4th on Melon's daily chart and 12th on its weekly chart, and it sat at the top of the site's list of songs with the fastest-rising likes. The song's average Melon rating was 3.1 out of 5, on the low side, while its likes passed 32,000 and were heading for the 36,000 of an ATEEZ track. Some listeners gave one star, writing “It’s disgusting that it’s AI”, while others gave five stars with “I really didn’t know I would be comforted by AI.”

Many listeners learn only afterwards that the vocals were generated, The Korea Times notes.

An earlier wave of this kind came from another creator, Joseon Hip-hop, whose AI-made "Forest of the Heart" entered the Melon TOP100 in September with a best rank of No. 89, per Edaily. Edaily adds that 39% of its listeners were in their 40s and 32% in their 30s, which suggests that the audience is not only young.

The platform matters as much as the song. The column notes that AI-generated music first hit big on YouTube, a place where viewers are already used to shorts, advertising content and VTubers (virtual YouTubers), and that countless cafes across the country now play AI-generated playlists instead of human-sung pop. Melon, long seen as the stronghold of human singers, was the last wall to give way.

Who is credited, and who is paid

The rules lag behind the charts. In August 2026, the Korea Music Copyright Association announced criteria for registering songs that use AI, based on the human creative contribution, then withdrew them after controversy, according to Edaily. The Korea Times adds that disclosing the use of AI does not settle the questions of what the systems were trained on and how much credit goes to human creators. Edaily reports that in 2022 the same association suspended royalty payments for six songs by an AI composer.

Pop culture critic Kim Heon-sik, quoted by Edaily, does not predict that AI will soon replace human singers. He does say that “the fact that an AI-vocal track reached No. 3 on Melon demonstrates that hit songs can be created even without a singer,” and advises human artists to hold to individuality, narrative and connection with fans.

Human singers are thinking about it too. An unnamed established singer told Lim that after hearing the song he fell into serious contemplation about “what the true competitiveness of human singers will be aside from singing well”.

Lim himself ends on a double note. He argues that K-pop already asks its stars to be impossibly perfect on stage and endlessly gentle to fans, so virtuality may be an old ideal that waited for the technology. He also writes that humans will keep yearning for humans, an advantage that AI products may lose once their stories and responsiveness catch up.

For readers outside Korea, and the next date

Melon is South Korea's largest music streaming site, so its chart is a local measure and not a global one. For listeners in the United States and the United Kingdom, the nearest test is a ticket. PLAVE's first world tour, KEEP IT MANIC, opened with two nights at Incheon Munhak Main Stadium in September 2026, according to The Korea Portal.

The tour's first United States date is the Pasadena Civic in California on November 14, 2026, a hall of roughly 3,000 seats by the same report. By then the column's count will be open to a recount, since the year has two months left to run.

Sources

• K-pop virtual idols: The Rise of AI Singers and Virtual Groups on Melon Charts, The Korea Daily, Lim Hee-yun, October 16, 2026