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AI music

Deezer Says AI-Generated Tracks Now Make Up 44% of Uploads

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Deezer says the flood of AI-generated music is accelerating at a pace that’s reshaping its platform, even as listeners remain largely disengaged.

On Monday, the streaming service revealed that nearly half of all tracks uploaded each day are now created using artificial intelligence. According to the company, about 44% of daily uploads fall into that category, amounting to roughly 75,000 AI-generated songs per day, or more than 2 million per month.

Deezer described itself as “the only streaming platform in the world transparently tagging AI-generated music,” positioning its approach as a potential industry standard amid growing concerns over disclosure and authenticity.

Despite that surge in supply, demand has not kept up. Deezer said AI-generated tracks account for just 1–3% of total streams on the platform. Of those listens, the streaming platform estimates that 85% are fraudulent and subsequently demonetized, underscoring concerns that much of the activity around AI music is being driven by manipulation rather than genuine audience interest.

The announcement reflects a steady climb in AI music uploads over recent months. Deezer reported receiving approximately 60,000 AI-generated tracks per day in January, compared to 50,000 in November and 30,000 in September. The growth is even more stark when measured against early 2025, when the platform first introduced its AI-detection tool and logged about 10,000 such uploads per day.

That detection system, which Deezer says is “patent-pending,” has evolved to identify content from leading generative models such as Suno and Udio, while also expanding toward more generalized detection that does not rely on training data from specific tools.

In response, Deezer has been tightening its handling of this content across its ecosystem. Tracks identified as AI-generated are excluded from algorithmic recommendations and do not appear in editorial playlists. Deezer also said it will stop storing high-resolution versions of these files, signaling a broader effort to limit their prominence and potential value within the platform.

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Deezer framed these measures as an effort to prevent AI tracks from “diluting the royalty pool in any significant way,” suggesting that unchecked uploads could undermine how artists are paid across streaming platforms.

“AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon, and as daily deliveries keep increasing, we hope the whole music ecosystem will join us in taking action to help safeguard artists’ rights and promote transparency for fans,” said Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier in a press release.

“Thanks to our technology and the proactive measures we put in place more than a year ago, we have shown that it’s possible to reduce AI-related fraud and payment dilution in streaming to a minimum. Since January, we have made our detection technology available for licensing, and we’re looking forward to seeing industry peers of all kinds join us in the fight for fairness in the age of AI.”

The company’s latest data arrives at a moment when AI music is beginning to break through in more visible ways. Last week, an AI-generated track reached the top of the iTunes charts across multiple countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and New Zealand. This milestone highlights both the technology’s reach and the difficulty listeners may have in distinguishing it from human-made work.

That confusion is showcased in Deezer’s own research. In a November survey, 97% of participants were unable to reliably distinguish between fully AI-generated songs and those created by human artists. At the same time, listeners expressed clear preferences around how such music should be handled; 52% said entirely AI-generated tracks should not be included alongside human-made songs in main music charts, while 80% said AI content should be clearly labeled.

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The survey, conducted with Ipsos across 9,000 participants in eight countries, also found that 73% of users want to know when a streaming service recommends fully AI-generated music, pointing to broader demand for transparency beyond simple labeling.

Deezer has positioned itself as one of the more proactive players in the streaming industry when it comes to transparency. It began tagging AI-generated tracks at the platform level in June 2025, becoming the first major service to do so. Over the course of that year, Deezer said it labeled more than 13.4 million AI-generated songs.

In addition, Deezer said it has applied for two patents related to its detection technology, focused on identifying “unique signatures” that distinguish synthetic audio from human-created recordings.

Other platforms are moving more cautiously. In February, French streaming service Qobuz announced plans to introduce its own labeling system for AI-generated content. Meanwhile, companies like Spotify and Apple Music have taken a more fragmented approach, relying on a mix of detection tools, quality filters, and distributor-led disclosures rather than a unified, platform-wide tagging policy.

The stakes extend beyond platform governance. A recent industry study cited by Deezer estimates that nearly 25% of creators’ revenues could be at risk by 2028 due to AI, potentially amounting to as much as  $4.7 billion in losses, a figure that underscores how rapidly the economics of music creation could shift.

As the volume of AI-generated music continues to climb, Deezer’s latest figures suggest the industry is entering a new phase in which the challenge is no longer identifying a niche trend but managing a rapidly expanding category that is already testing the boundaries of streaming economics, authenticity, and trust.

spotify

Activist Group Says It Has Removed 86 Million Music Files From Spotify 

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An activist group called Anna’s Archive has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify with the intention of releasing them online. Outside experts are stating that these leaks could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology. 

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Anna’s Archive said that they scraped 86 million music files from Spotify along with 256 million rows of metadata like artist and album names. Spotify confirmed that this leak doesn’t represent their entire inventory. The music streaming platform hosts over 100 million tracks. 

Spotify has more than 700 million users globally, and stated that they had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping.”

“An investigation into unauthorized access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management] to access some of the platform’s audio files.”

Spotify also doesn’t believe that the music taken from Anna’s Archive has been released. The group is known for providing links to pirated books, and they stated in a blog that they want to create a “preservation archive for music.”

They also stated that the audio files represent 99.6% of all music listened to on Spotify by its users, and will be shared through “torrents,” which are a way of sharing large digital files online. 

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“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, who describe their mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture.”

“With your help, humanity’s musical heritage will be forever protected from destruction by natural disasters, wars, budget cuts and other catastrophes,” said the group.

Ed Newton-Rex is a composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright through the rise of AI. He recently stated that he believes these music leaks will likely be used to develop AI models. 

“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models. This is why governments must insist AI companies reveal the training data they use,” he said.

Spotify has stated that they have put new safeguards in place “for these types of anti-copyright attacks” following the Anna’s Archive announcement so that they could be “actively monitoring for suspicious behavior.”

ai band

Popular Band Admits That They’re AI-Generated After Two Albums And 1 Million Plays 

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Hot new band The Velvet Sundown has risen in popularity throughout the past few weeks. They’ve earned over one million streams on Spotify with the release of two albums. Now, the band is making headlines after admitting that all of the music, promotional images, backstory, and artistry that’s been consumed by the public was generated by artificial intelligence. 

Music industry insiders are now having a very public debate, and warning listeners, over the authenticity of the work itself. According to reports, insiders believe that streaming platforms and the individuals responsible for creating music with AI should be required to disclose the use of the technology in relation to the work. 

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Insiders are upset that the “band” was also denying the use of AI to create their work. The “band” described their work as “a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction,” which industry heads are pointing out to be obviously misleading. 

The discovery of the use of AI came about when an individual who described themselves as an “adjunct member” of the group told reporters with Fader that the band utilized Suno, a generative AI platform, to create their songs, and even said the entire project was an “art hoax.” 

In response, the band posted on their social media that the claims from the adjunct member weren’t true and the identity of the band had been “hijacked.” 

Shortly after, however, the band released a statement confirming that they were created using AI and were “Not quite human. Not quite machine, [but] somewhere in between.”

 Listeners would never be able to tell by simply consuming the music due to the fact that streaming sites like Spotify don’t have any legal obligation to point out AI-generated music. Roberto Neri, the chief executive of the Ivors Academy, one of the largest professional associations for music writers in Europe, spoke to the Guardian about this new issue within the industry. 

“AI-generated bands like Velvet Sundown that are reaching big audiences without involving human creators raise serious concerns around transparency, authorship and consent.”

Neri continued to say that there is room for AI within the music industry, claiming that the technology has the potential to “enhance songwriting,” however, the newness and lack of regulation regarding AI, especially in the multitude of art industries, makes it difficult. 

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Sophie Jones, chief strategy officer at the British Phonographic Industry, echoed the sentiment that artists who use AI should at the very least be open and honest about it. 

“We believe that AI should be used to serve human creativity, not supplant it.”

“That’s why we’re calling on the UK government to protect copyright and introduce new transparency obligations for AI companies so that music rights can be licensed and enforced, as well as calling for the clear labelling of content solely generated by AI.”

Liz Pelly, an expert and author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, pointed out that the use of AI in the music industry is especially exploitative towards independent artists that people behind AI bands might be using to help train the technology and create tracks. 

“We need to make sure that it’s not just pop stars whose interests are being looked after, all artists should have the ability to know if their work has been exploited in this way,” Pelly said, referring to the recent uptick in AI-generated music in the style of famous performers such as Drake, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, and more. 

Jones added: “The rise of AI-generated bands and music entering the market points to the fact that tech companies have been training AI models using creative works – largely without authorization or payment to creators and rights-holders – in order to directly compete with human artistry.”

Currently, popular streaming platform Spotify doesn’t label music as AI-generated. This has led to criticism regarding the curation of artists, songs, and playlists by “ghost artists.”

A spokesperson for Spotify said: “All music on Spotify, including AI-generated music, is created, owned, and uploaded by licensed third parties.”