Spotify is set to introduce a new system in September that will identify artist profiles whose public identities appear to have been created using generative artificial intelligence (AI), while excluding those profiles from most personalised recommendations by default.
Under the new policy, an “AI Persona” badge will begin appearing on some artist profiles from mid-September. Spotify said the label is intended to tell listeners when an artist’s public identity may be AI-generated rather than representing a real person.
According to the company, the change is part of a broader effort to increase transparency around AI on its platform. It comes as generative AI makes it easier to create music, artist identities and other elements of a performer’s online presence without a conventional human artist behind them.
Spotify said the policy concerns the identity presented by an artist, rather than whether AI was used to make the music itself. Artists can already disclose their use of AI through Spotify’s AI Credits system, which provides information about how AI contributed to a track’s creation.
Starting on August 11, artists will be able to disclose through Spotify for Artists that their profile represents an AI Persona. The company said it would also review artist profiles and identify those whose publicly presented identities, including names and imagery, appear to represent photorealistic AI-generated people. The initial reviews will focus on artists that meet certain audience thresholds, Spotify said, with the aim of covering most of the artist profiles visited by listeners.
From mid-September, the AI Persona badge will appear on relevant artist profiles, in search results and alongside tracks in playlists. Listeners will be able to tap the badge to see whether the artist disclosed the AI identity themselves or whether Spotify determined the profile to be an AI Persona following its own review.
Artists whose profiles are labelled by Spotify will be notified and given an opportunity to disclose their status or appeal the decision. Spotify said it also plans to allow listeners to report profiles they believe represent AI Personas, although that feature will be introduced later.
Spotify has also introduced Verified by Spotify, which it said is designed to signal that an artist is a real person presenting themselves authentically on the platform. The company said hundreds of thousands of profiles have been verified, with independent artists accounting for most of them.