Napster is back. The name that struck fear into the hearts of music executives in the early dotcom era may be coming to a classroom near you.

In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, it has signed a strategic partnership with Gems Education to build AI agents and digital personas for education. In doing so, the once-notorious music-sharing company is bringing its technology into the classroom and testing how AI can augment the work of both teachers and students.

Today’s Napster, of course, bears no resemblance to its original incarnation as a peer-to-peer music-file-sharing service. Launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform revolutionized how people downloaded music, forcing the entire entertainment industry to rethink how content was distributed, sold, and controlled.

Napster eventually became the subject of a string of legal battles over copyright infringement and, following a series of adverse court rulings, had to shut down its original service in 2001.

Following its shuttering, the company went through various iterations, most recently as a music-streaming platform, until it was purchased by the Florida-based tech company Infinite Reality in 2025 for $207 million and pivoted to become an artificial intelligence platform. In January this year, it abruptly shut down its music-streaming service.

The company is now establishing a regional hub in Dubai, with Samuel Huber, formerly the founder and CEO of UK-based technology company Landvault—itself acquired by Infinite Reality in 2024—taking the helm as Napster’s CEO for the Middle East and Africa.

“The name has always been about giving power to the users,” says Huber. “Twenty-five years ago, it was about music and how music should be owned by people, not the gatekeepers. And now this is the same fight, the same ethos, but it’s about data and intelligence.”

Huber says that means challenging the power of the big AI companies. “The AI model companies have a lot of power; they’re building incredible models, and we want Napster to be an alternative to that.”

Napster’s work for Gems will develop proof-of-concept projects and showcases, including digitalising instructors, gamified learning, AI-assisted content creation, and classroom simulations.

The first phase will be anchored at the Gems School of Research and Innovation, where the Gems Global Education AI Hub and Gems Intelligence 360 platform will provide a real-world environment for educators, students, and partners to codesign, test, and evaluate AI agents and digital personas.

Napster will provide dedicated design, development, and product management resources based on Napster Learn, its AI-powered learning system. Digital twins of teachers, for example, will provide around-the-clock support.

Trained on a teacher’s material, courses, and papers, these digital twins will live online, becoming a “copy of yourself that you can then use to scale your time.” Students will be able to talk to them outside class, ask questions, refine concepts, and learn at their own pace, while teachers receive insights into the questions students are asking and where they may need additional support.

“We’re creating a better experience using voice, using video, to create a better way to interact with AI to make it more natural, so AI becomes more like coworkers rather than a machine or tool that you prompt, and we apply this technology in different verticals.”

According to Huber, AI agents and digital personas extend what teachers can do without replacing the human relationship at the heart of education. He also says student data will remain within the country and, where required, can be hosted on a company’s own servers. He also says Napster does not use user data to train its AI models.

While reassuring, much of this may well scare teachers fearful of losing their jobs. Although AI has caused considerable upheaval across multiple industries, Huber argues that its use in education should be about augmentation rather than replacement.

“I think it’s absolutely critical for educators, for professors, and for students to learn how to use AI in the right way. Because you’re right, there are two paths. We could let AI replace us. But if you’re using it in a smart way, you’re bringing insights, and then you use AI to augment yourself, just like you use word processors to type faster; then AI becomes a tool that augments you, not replaces you. I think students have that choice as well.”

The question is whether students and teachers actually want this and whether AI avatars can deliver meaningful educational benefits rather than simply offering a more sophisticated chatbot. In response, Huber says Gems will help Napster understand what students actually want from the technology.

“We’re not at the point yet where AI can fully replace humans, and therefore we want to leverage that technology overlaid on top of humans to get the most of it. What we’re building here is not about replacing the course, the lesson, the primary interaction between teachers and students that still happens in the real world.

“I think every student and every professor would want to support their students better,” he adds. “They would want to do one-on-one discussions with 200 students if they could, but there’s just no time. You can’t scale yourself this way.”

Napster’s move into the region is, in large part, driven by the UAE’s ambitious plans for AI. In May, the UAE Cabinet approved a federal framework for implementing agentic AI across ministries and government entities, supporting a plan to transition 50 percent of government services and operations to agentic AI models within two years. Napster wants to be part of that push.

Its partnership with Kameha Ventures, a Dubai-based venture platform led by Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mana Bin Khalifa Saeed Al Maktoum, is intended to help it tap into that market, bridging the gap between global AI capability and local deployment. Kameha will provide regional market development and institutional support, with localization of Napster’s offering a key priority.

“Localising the offering here is probably more important than in any other part of the world. Here, there’s a lot of cultural nuances that really matter, and even in digital products.”

Napster is also investing in local AI infrastructure. It has partnered with G42 in the UAE to host its data and run AI models locally, says Huber. In Saudi Arabia, it has collaborated with Lenovo and data center operator Detasad to run its infrastructure in-country, part of what Napster’s regional CEO describes as a broader push towards AI and data sovereignty.

Napster also plans to grow its roughly 20-strong regional team to about 500 by 2030.

“I’m here because there is a vision for AI in this country, which I find incredibly motivating and exciting as an entrepreneur, and we want to be one of the companies that help make that vision a reality. So we’re investing a lot in the country to make that happen.”

This story originally appeared on WIRED Middle East.