An AI Just Cracked Billboard’s Radio Chart — Meet Xania Monet

AI-driven artist Xania Monet makes history as the first AI act on a Billboard radio chart, with How Was I Supposed to Know? debuting at No. 30 on the Nov. 1 Adult R&B Airplay survey—an inflection point for how hits get made.

An AI-made singer just cracked a Billboard radio chart. Yes, actual radio airplay, not a random viral playlist spike. It is exactly as strange as it sounds, and it is probably going to set off a lot of arguments.

What happened

Xania Monet, an AI-driven act created by a human songwriter, debuted at No. 30 on Billboard's Adult R&B Airplay chart dated Nov 1 with the single 'How Was I Supposed to Know?'. That makes Xania the first AI artist to ever show up on a Billboard radio chart, which measures spins from U.S. radio stations. She has already hit other Billboard rankings before this (Hot Gospel Songs and Hot R&B Songs), but this is the first time an AI act has landed on a radio-only lineup.

Who is Xania, really?

Behind the digital face is 31-year-old Mississippi poet Talisha Jones, who lives in Olive Branch and runs a design studio. Jones writes all the lyrics. Then she uses the music creation service Suno to turn those words into finished tracks under the Xania name. Her manager, Romel Murphy, says most of the songs are pulled straight from Jones's life: roughly 90% from her own stories, and the rest inspired by people around her.

Jones grew up singing in church. She is not trying to be a vocal powerhouse; she is a writer and the creative engine on the production side, with plans to collaborate more with human producers going forward. Murphy describes why the songs are connecting: it is not about an earworm hook or a cute chant. It is the writing.

'This is real music - it is real R&B. There is an artist behind it.'

The numbers and the deal

Xania has traction across platforms: over 161K subscribers on YouTube, 147K followers on Instagram, and more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify. And there is industry money behind her now. According to Forbes, Neil Jacobson's independent label Hallwood Media signed Xania to a record deal reportedly worth $3 million after a bidding war.

Why a radio chart matters

Streaming can mint overnight stars, but radio still rewards songs that programmers think will work again and again for a broad audience. Adult R&B Airplay is an airplay-only chart, so to land there, Xania needed real spins across stations, not just streams or downloads. That is the line she just crossed.

People are... divided

The reaction online is exactly what you would expect when AI and art bump into each other in public. Some listeners are not having it: 'It should be illegal for AI artists to chart at all' and 'I genuinely want actual R&B artists to be seeing this kind of success. Not AI.' Others argue the opposite: if there is visible creative vision and a human you can actually follow, it is not meaningless tech fluff. One take I saw that sums up the pro side: 'People follow people.' Another: 'This blurs the line between artist and persona... AI is amplifying independent talent.'

Zooming out, this is hitting nerves beyond music. Folks worried about AI replacing jobs see this as another domino. The counterpoint here is that Jones is using AI more like a production tool and a persona, not a total replacement for a human artist. Whether that makes you feel better probably depends on how you define 'artist' in 2025.

Other AI acts sneaking onto Billboard

• ChildPets Galore: 'The Only Thing I Can Take to Heaven' debuted at No. 14 on Christian Digital Song Sales on Aug 16, selling over a thousand downloads that week. Songwriter credit goes to Cindy Hugo. The catalog has 1.2 million streams so far.
• Unbound Music: Songwriter Terrance LeDoux's AI-assisted project. 'You Got This' helped debut at No. 47 on the Emerging Artists chart on Oct 11. Their bio says they blend human creativity with AI. The catalog sits at 5.5 million streams.
• Enlly Blue: From songwriter Thong Viet. Debuted at No. 44 on the Emerging Artists chart on Oct 18, driven by 'Through My Soul', which also hit No. 15 on Rock Digital Song Sales. The catalog has topped 5.3 million streams.
• Juno Skye (Nguyen Duc Nam): 1.6 million official streams.
• Breaking Rust (Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor): 1.6 million official U.S. streams.

Bottom line

Xania Monet landing on an airplay chart is a legit industry first, and it is messy in all the interesting ways. It is an AI persona fronting music written by a human, now backed by a multi-million-dollar deal, getting real radio spins. If this is the future, it is already here. How you feel about it probably comes down to whether you hear a gimmick or an artist using new tools.