A quarter of all uploaded music is AI-generated, Deezer claims

According to Deezer, 28% of all music delivered to the music streaming platform is fully AI-generated.

At the beginning of the year, Deezer introduced an AI detection tool to review submitted tracks. Ever since, the music streaming platform has seen a steady increase in “fully synthetic content” coming in every day. This is music created entirely by artificial intelligence, not music in which AI played a supporting role.

In January, roughly 10% of all songs that were uploaded to Deezer were AI-generated. This number increased to 18% in April. The music streaming company currently receives over 30,000 AI-generated tracks every day, which accounts for more than a quarter of all the music that’s being uploaded.

Is this a bad thing? Music lovers seem to think so. In July, they expressed their anger at Spotify for promoting a fake band called The Velvet Sundown. The same happened when a fake song by the late country artist Blaze Foley went live on Spotify. This sparked an online debate about deepfake music, legacy fraud, and the streaming platform’s failure to flag synthetic content.

Whether you are in favor of AI-generated music or not, Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer, argues that it’s all about transparency. He notes that AI-generated music makes up a significant part of the daily track delivery to Deezer’s music streaming platform.

“We want to lead the way in minimizing any negative impact for artists and fans alike. Our approach is simple: we remove fully AI-generated content from algorithmic recommendations, and we don’t include it in editorial playlists. This way, we ensure the impact on the royalty pool remains minimal while providing a transparent user experience,” Lanternier said in a statement.

According to the CEO, fraud is the main driver behind uploading fully AI-generated content. The music streaming platform has found that up to 70% of the streams generated by fully AI-generated tracks are fraudulent. When Deezer detects streaming manipulation of any kind, the company excludes the streams from royalty payments.

In June, Deezer became the first music streaming platform to explicitly tag AI-generated music.

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