Spotify to label AI artists and remove them from recommendations

Spotify will begin labeling AI-generated artists and excluding their music from recommendations.

According to TechCrunch, citing the company’s announcement, some artist profiles will receive an “AI Persona” label starting in mid-September. The tag will indicate that the artist is an artificially created identity rather than a real person. Spotify will stop promoting these profiles in both editorial playlists and algorithmic recommendations.

The label applies specifically to virtual artists, meaning AI-generated personas presented as musicians, rather than to any music created with the help of AI. Spotify says it will not penalize or downrank legitimate uses of AI as a creative tool, with the key question being whether an artist profile represents a real person. The company also will not rely solely on voluntary disclosure and plans to identify profiles that appear to use photorealistic AI identities based on their names, images and other signals.

The new label is part of Spotify’s broader effort to tackle the influx of AI-generated content, which began in September 2025. The company introduced rules against impersonation, including unauthorized voice clones and deepfakes, backed an industry standard for disclosing AI use in track metadata and launched a spam filter. The system targets accounts that abuse mass uploads, duplicates and artificial engagement and removes their music from recommendations. Spotify said it removed more than 75 million spam tracks in the 12 months leading up to that announcement.

Spotify’s crackdown is also driven by the economics of AI-generated content. AI spam and artificial streams can dilute the overall royalty pool, diverting revenue from human musicians while competing for listeners’ attention. The company says it is rolling out its measures gradually to avoid penalizing legitimate creators who use AI in their work.

Other streaming services are taking similar steps. Deezer said in 2025 that it had become the first platform to label AI-generated music, while Qobuz has introduced its own detection system. Industry groups RIAA and IFPI have also proposed standardized “AI-generated” and “AI-assisted” labels across streaming platforms.