Spotify says it won’t recommend music from ‘AI Personas’

Spotify will soon label AI artists and remove their music from your recommendations. The change, which will start rolling out in mid-September, means you’ll see an “AI Persona” badge on an artist’s profile across the app if they do “not represent a real person.”

The music streaming platform will allow artists to disclose that they’re an AI persona starting today, but it won’t rely solely on self-identification. Spotify says it will use human review and AI tools to determine whether someone’s profile, including their name and image, “appears to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities.” If Spotify determines that an artist’s identity may be AI-generated, it will apply a “Likely AI Persona” badge. Spotify will review artists who meet “defined audience thresholds” first to cover the profiles people listen to the most.

Music from AI personas won’t appear in editorial suggestions or personal recommendations by default. “Listeners have been clear in telling us that they don’t like seeing an artist profile that seems human, only to find out that the persona is AI-generated,” Spotify says. “We tune our algorithms to highlight authentic human artists and, based on available signals, strive to not include spam, slop, or low-effort content in our recommendations.”

Spotify says its new labels only pertain to an artist’s identity, rather than how they created their music. While Spotify currently doesn’t have a system to identify AI-generated music like Deezer, it allows artists to disclose AI use and launched a “Verified by Spotify” badge to indicate that they’re a real person. The platform will notify artists if it puts a “Likely AI Persona” badge on their profile, and will also give them the ability to appeal. Spotify plans on adding a feature that will let listeners flag artists with potential AI-generated identities as well.