Spotify starts labeling AI artists and removing them from recommendations

Today, Spotify has announced a new label for AI artists. It's called "AI Persona", and it's meant to signal to listeners that an artist's identity may be AI-generated and "does not represent a real person", the company says. This will begin appearing in mid-September.

Interestingly, this will not only be applied to artist profiles that self-disclose as AI Personas, but Spotify will also add it to other "relevant profiles", because it's "focused on elevating music from authentic artists building careers in music".

By default, anything created by these AI Personas will be excluded from any editorial or algorithmic recommendations. You will still get their stuff recommended to you if you follow them.

Starting today, artists can self-disclose as AI Personas. Spotify will also review artist profiles and identify those whose public identity (including name and imagery on their profile) "appears to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities".

In mid-September you'll see the AI Persona badge on artist profiles (in the banner and the About section), in search results, and on track rows across playlists. When you tap on such a badge, you'll see whether the artist self-disclosed that they are an AI Persona or if Spotify had to review their profile and "make an informed determination".

If Spotify does this, artists will get an opportunity to appeal, of course. "In the coming months", Spotify users will also get a way to report artist profiles that they believe are AI Personas. Spotify notes that the AI Persona badge "is about the artist's public identity, not about how the music was made". For more information about how the music itself was made, Spotify has AI Credits and SongDNA.

The company says its approach to AI will keep evolving in step with the overall music ecosystem, and it strives "not to include spam, slop, or low-effort content" in its recommendations.

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