Spotify says it has excluded more than 50 million tracks categorized as low-quality AI-generated content or spam from recommendations in 2026, while leaving them available on the platform. The measure is distinct from outright deletion: in September 2025, Spotify reported having removed more than 75 million spam tracks for serious or repeated rule violations. The company continues to delete content that meets those criteria.
Over the past six months, Spotify has revised its recommendation system to give greater prominence to human artists. An examination of tracks that listeners skipped, ignored or explicitly rejected revealed a pattern involving content its systems had flagged as low-quality or spam. Spotify says listener complaints about such recommendations have subsequently declined. Its detection process combines listener behavior and feedback, upload patterns, track metadata and third-party AI detection tools. However, the company acknowledges that automated detection has limitations and will become more difficult as generative AI advances.
Thousands of virtual artists now carry an AI Persona label identifying them as artificial identities rather than real people. Their tracks are excluded from editorial playlists and, by default, recommendations, although exceptions can apply when listeners follow them. More than 300,000 human artists have verification badges, covering over 99 percent of artists users search for. Artists also submit tens of thousands of disclosures about AI use each day, which listeners can view on mobile. Spotify is expanding a separate tool allowing musicians to approve songs credited to them on their profiles, with access planned for all artists by the end of the year.
