Thu 16 Jul 2026 at 11:58am
In short: #
Spotify is making it easier for listeners to figure out if the music they are listening to is human-made or produced using generative AI.
While the audio streaming service says it will not get in the way of artists and producers using AI, it's committed to removing "AI slop" from the platform.
What's next? #
Musicians are being encouraged to be transparent by using a new beta feature on the app that tells listeners if and how they have used AI in their music.
As one of the largest, and the most popular, music streaming service in the world, Spotify has a considerable amount of heft when it comes to what Australians are listening to.
With more than 100 million songs in its database and more than 761 million monthly users, the Swedish streamer has taken it upon itself to remove what it calls "AI slop" from the platform.
That includes 75 million "spammy tracks" in the space of 12 months.
"Slop, spam, low-effort content, no-one wants that's polluting their experience on Spotify or any streaming service," says Sam Duboff, Spotify's global head of artists, marketing and policy.
"We tag all those tracks. We remove them completely from recommendations.
"If it's egregious spam, we remove them from the service overall."
Spotify is not, however, dictating whether or not artists can share tracks on its platform produced using AI.
"What we hear from artists is a lot of them choose to not use AI in their creative process," Mr Duboff said.
"That's great.
"We believe it should be up to artists, songwriters, [and] producers if or how they want to use AI as one tool in their creative process.
"But when they use AI, we think it's really important that they share that with listeners."
Spotify has introduced a new artist verification program which gives verified artists a green check mark.
On top of that it now has AI credits where musicians can choose to be more transparent by indicating if they have used AI, for example, with their instrumentation or vocals.
Mr Duboff concedes though, because it depends on artist disclosure, it is possible some tracks may slip through the cracks.
There is conjecture over whether the number one song on Australia's national airplay charts has been made using AI. The Josh Fawaz cover of the Madonna song Like a Prayer, of the same name, has been streamed on Spotify more than 37 million times.
While Mr Duboff did not weigh in on that specific track, he says AI remixes and covers often gain momentum on social media. "What happens … is it's made by a producer off platform," he says.
"It takes off on social media. They upload it to streaming services.
"The artist who's covered usually would earn the publishing royalties, but the person who creates it would get the recorded royalties.
"For the sort of system that we're building in a licensed environment, the artist would be in control.
"So, for the products we'd be building, the artist would choose if their song could be remixed or covered.
"If people listen to it, it'll always be properly credited."
Spotify pays artists, but is it enough? #
Mr Duboff previously pushed back when rap superstar Snoop Dogg claimed in a viral clip that he earned less than $US45,000 ($64,000) from Spotify for a billion streams.
Mr Duboff told Kato On The Track's YouTube channel that the streaming giant actually paid between $US3 million to $US5 million for a billion streams.
He explained to ABC News that it could be difficult for artists to understand royalty cheques, especially if they have received a large advance from their record companies that needed to be recouped; or if there were multiple songwriters on a song.
"The truth is Spotify started 20 years ago," Mr Duboff said.
"2014, I think was the low point of the industry in terms of global recorded revenue for music.
"And Spotify was born out of respect for copyright when piracy was ravaging the industry and we came in with the streaming model to try to see if we could rebuild the industry.
"And if you look 10 years ago around that low point, there was a lot of valid questions about whether streaming would scale as an economic model."
He says, however, that while in 2014 Spotify was only paying out about $US1 billion a year, that number has increased exponentially.
"We're the biggest pay cheque in the industry," he says.
"We're paying out $[US]11 billion a year.
"And the most exciting part is superstars are doing well, but it's really kind of a new class of emerging artists who are able to generate more and more money."
He says the artist ranked 100,000th now makes around $US7,300 from Spotify a year, an increase of almost $US7,000.
He also cleared up a few misconceptions about how the royalty pool works, and how much of that share AI-generated music gobbles up.
"The royalty pool is administered every month based on stream share," Mr Duboff said.
"If you get 1 per cent of streams that month, you get 1 per cent of the royalty pool.
"Those royalties are going to the artists that listeners love, that they're listening to, artists that we all love, those verified artists, those human, authentic artists.
"When we look at the sort of entirely AI-generated music that people worry about, music that's industrially produced, less human input, we see [and] every other streaming service sees well under 1 per cent of consumption is going to those tracks.
"Listeners don't want it … and we're really seeing low consumption there.
"What we're hearing from fans and what we're seeing on our service is people want to listen to and are seeking out authentic human music."