Spotify is cracking down on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on its platform.
The streaming giant — home to over 751 million monthly global listeners — has just launched Artist Profile Protection. This new feature allows artists to review and either approve or reject releases before they show up under their name.
The reason? Music has been ending up on the wrong artist pages across streaming services for years, and the explosion of easy-to-create AI music has only made things worse.
Spotify explained, "For the first time on any music streaming service, we’re giving you the ability to review and approve or decline releases delivered to Spotify from most providers. To protect your artist identity and prevent listener confusion, only the releases you approve will appear on your artist profile, contribute to your stats, and show up in recommendations to your listeners."
Music generated from AI tools has been clogging platforms like Spotify for months, making it more difficult to sift through legitimate creations. In the past 12 months alone, the company has "removed over 75 million spammy tracks" from the platform.
Music has been ending up on the wrong artist pages across streaming services for years, which is one of the many reasons Spotify has created Artist Profile Protection
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Spotify has also said that one of the biggest requests from artists over the past year has been wanting more visibility before music appears under their name.
Music can incorrectly land on an artist's page for all sorts of reasons, not only due to the rise of AI. There could be a metadata mix-up, perhaps another artist shares the same name, or someone has deliberately attached their music to the artist's page.
When this happens, it can mess with how fans discover artists' actual music.
Right now, Artist Profile Protection is in limited beta — meaning it's available to a select group of artists for testing before it rolls out to everyone. Spotify plans to gather feedback from those testing it and refine the feature before rolling it out more widely. The company says it wants to expand access as soon as possible.
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This isn't the only AI protection Spotify has put in place, either. The streaming platform recently launched an impersonation policy, designed to help clarify how they handle AI voice clones and other forms of vocal impersonation to give artists better protection.
Spotify said in a statement, "We’ve always had a policy against deceptive content. But AI tools have made generating vocal deepfakes of your favourite artists easier than ever before."
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet, with millions of people relying on the monthly subscription to listen to new albums, playlists, and exclusive podcasts | GETTY IMAGESOther platforms like Apple Music are combating the use of AI in their recent system called Transparency Tags. This requires labels and disclosures on AI-generated content in the creation of tracks, lyrics, artwork, or music videos.
YouTube Music has implemented a similar policy.