AI music battles: how HOOKFIGHTS works

What is an AI music battle?

An AI music battle is any contest where songs made with AI compete for votes. The name covers three quite different formats:

If you have ever played a "which song is better" game with friends, the idea is the same: hear two songs, pick one. The difference is that every vote here feeds a public leaderboard, so a song's rank comes from many listeners' choices instead of one judge's opinion.

For the annual contests and their deadlines, see our list of AI music contests in 2026.

How HOOKFIGHTS works, step by step

HOOKFIGHTS (people also search for it as hookfight or hook fight) is a song battle website built only for AI music. Here is a battle from start to finish:

1. A new drop every day. Fresh battles go live at 18:00 UTC and stay open for 24 hours.
2. Two hooks per battle. Each side is the chorus of a released AI song, cut to 15–30 seconds and loudness-matched, so neither wins just by being louder.
3. Listen first. The vote unlocks only after both hooks have played for a few seconds, and the server checks this as well as your browser.
4. Vote blind. You get one vote per battle, and you see the vote split only after you have voted.
5. Ratings move. Each result updates both hooks' ratings, based on who won, by how much and how many people voted.
6. Seasons end in playoffs. After 28 days of daily ladder battles, the top-rated hooks play a knockout bracket.

Today's battles are always on the home page.

Why battle hooks instead of full songs?

A hook is the part of a song people remember, hum and share, usually the chorus built around the title line; our guide to what a hook is in music goes deeper. A hook battle has three practical advantages over a full-song vote:

• It is a fair comparison. Both sides are the same kind of section, at a similar length and matched loudness. A three-minute song against a five-minute song is never an equal listen.
• It takes about a minute. Two short clips are easy to hear in full, so people actually listen to both sides before they vote, which is what makes a blind vote worth anything.
• It tests the part that has to work first. A chorus that does not grab people rarely gets a second chance. A strong one makes them want the whole song.

Is the vote fair? Blind voting, listen-to-vote and fraud checks

Votes only mean something if they come from people who heard both sides. HOOKFIGHTS uses four layers of protection:

• Blind voting. The split stays hidden until you vote, so nobody can follow the crowd.
• One vote per listener per battle.
• Listen-to-vote. Voting unlocks only after both hooks have played for a few seconds, and the check runs on the server, not just in the browser.
• Fraud checks. Votes from hosting and cloud networks, votes cast faster than anyone could listen, and bursts of votes from one network are set aside and not counted. Final tallies show how many votes were removed, so the cleanup is visible.

Entries are checked too. A person reviews every hook before it can battle, and voice clones, real artists' names and real artists' likenesses are not allowed. The launch roster includes hooks by Texts After Midnight and Jax Morrow, house artists produced by the team behind HOOKFIGHTS; they play under the same rules and get no extra votes.

How AI song ratings work

Every hook has an ELO rating, the same family of rating systems chess uses to rank players. Every hook starts at 1500. After each battle the winner gains points and the loser drops, and beating a higher-rated hook is worth more than beating a lower-rated one. Four details shape how far a rating moves:

• Result: a win counts as 1, a draw as ½ and a loss as 0.
• Speed of change (K): 48 for a hook's first 10 battles, so new entries find their level quickly, then 32.
• Margin bonus (M): M = 1 + min(0.5, (margin − 2)/40), with the margin measured in vote-share points. A landslide moves ratings more than a near tie, up to 1.5 times as much.
• Evidence weight (W): W = min(1, √(votes/25)). Battles with few votes move ratings less, and a battle reaches full weight at 25 votes.

Ratings map to five tiers:

The full leaderboard is on Rankings, and our guide to how ELO ratings work for songs explains the system in more detail.

Language leagues and seasons

Songs only battle songs in the same language, so a Portuguese ballad never has to beat an English rap song to rank. Each language gets its own league:

• English League: live now, and the default when you open the site.
• Balkan, Latin, German, French and Lusophone leagues: each opens when its first hooks are approved.

Each league runs in seasons. A season starts with 28 days of ladder battles, one drop a day. Then the top 4 hooks by rating, counting only hooks with at least 3 rated battles, play a single-elimination bracket, one round per daily drop. Once a league has 16 or more hooks, the bracket grows to the top 8. Ratings carry over from season to season, so a strong hook keeps its standing. You can follow the current season on the bracket page.

How to enter your AI song (free)

Entering costs nothing, which makes it a free way for an AI artist to get a song heard and rated by real listeners. If your AI song is released, here is the process:

1. Go to Enter and upload the released song.
2. Pick the hook in your browser: the 15–30 second section you want to battle with.
3. Add the cover art, a link to the release and an AI-disclosure label.
4. Wait for review. A person checks every entry, usually within 48 hours.

You can submit up to 3 entries per day from one network. Pick the section that grabs a listener fastest, which is not always the loudest part. Our guide on how to write a hook covers what makes a chorus stick.

How to share a battle with Card Studio

Card Studio makes 9:16 battle cards as PNG images, sized for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Post the card with a link and ask people to listen to both sides before they vote.

Your fans' votes go through the same checks as everyone else's: they have to listen first, and bursts of votes from one network are set aside. Sharing widely works better than asking a few people in the same place to vote.