Spotify Labels AI Persona Artist Profiles And Excludes Them From Recommendations Starting Mid-September

Spotify said it will begin labeling artist profiles whose public identities may have been generated by artificial intelligence with an “AI Persona” badge starting in mid-September, and it will exclude those AI Personas from editorial and algorithmic recommendations by default.

“Starting in mid-September, an “AI Persona” badge will appear on certain artist profiles”

Anadolu Ajansı

The company said the badge will appear on certain artist profiles, in search results and alongside tracks in playlists, and it will indicate whether an artist’s identity may be AI-generated and does not represent a real person.

Anadolu Ajansı

Spotify also said it will allow artists to voluntarily identify their profiles as AI Personas through Spotify for Artists starting Tuesday (Aug. 11), but it “won’t rely on self-disclosure alone.”

Spotify said it will review profiles whose names and images appear to portray photorealistic AI-generated identities, beginning with those that meet defined audience thresholds, and it will notify artists labeled by Spotify so they can disclose or appeal.

Spotify framed the policy as a trust measure, saying: “True artist-fan connection can only be built on a foundation of trust and authenticity.”

In the same statement, Spotify added that “listeners need to be able to trust that the artist behind the music is who they say they are,” and it said the badge is about identity presented by an artist profile rather than how the music was produced.

Billboard

The company said it will exclude AI Personas from personalized recommendations by default, recommending their music only to users who follow them, and it described that follow action as an explicit signal of interest.

Spotify also said it will use human review and AI investigative tools to determine if artists were fake, and it will allow listeners to report suspected AI Persona profiles in the coming months.

Spotify said the rollout is designed to keep AI-generated profiles from being treated like human artists in recommendations, while still letting creators disclose AI involvement through Spotify’s tools such as AI Credits and SongDNA.

“Listeners have been clear in telling us that they don’t like seeing an artist profile”

The Guardian

The company said: “Listeners have been clear in telling us that they don’t like seeing an artist profile that seems human, only to find out that the persona is AI-generated.”

In addition to the AI Persona badge, Spotify said it had removed 75m spam tracks from its platform over a 12-month period as AI tools created a flood of fake music, and it said its legitimate catalogue stands at 100m tracks.

Spotify also said artists can appeal if a badge is applied incorrectly, and it plans to let users report artist profiles they believe represent AI Personas that have not been labelled yet.