The Human Signal #47 – What the Data Reveals About AI Music Growth (It's Bad...) - AIWTF? 2/11

This In this episode of The Human Signal (part two in my eleven part series, AIWFT?) I continue looking at how AI is shaping the music industry, but this time through the lens of the streaming platforms themselves. I compare and talk through the different approaches being taken by Spotify, Deezer, and Bandcamp, and what those approaches reveal about how each platform is positioning itself in relation to human artists and AI-generated content. NOTE: This episode was recorded before Deezer announced new stats (just today) indicating that 44% of all music on it’s platform is now AI generated. If uploads to Deezer continue along the established trend pattern, we are now just weeks away from AI surpassing 50% of all music on Deezer, making it the majority. This trajectory has extremely negative implications for all human artists’ ability to earn from what was already an incredibly shallow pool of streaming royalties. Full Episode DescriptionContinuing on from part one, where I discussed Karra having her album completely deleted by Spotify with no pathway forward, we can see that Spotify has taken a very reactive approach. They allow things to run freely and then step in afterwards with enforcement. There’s no prevention, no clear system, and no labelling of AI content, which they still refuse to implement.From the artist’s perspective, this is a very harsh system. There’s no negotiation, no warning, and no opportunity to fix an issue. It’s just immediate removal. That puts the administrative burden back onto the artist and creates a constant sense of risk. The system becomes volatile and inconsistent.All platforms are introducing changes in different ways, and over time you can see them developing distinct identities in how they handle AI. Spotify, in this context, feels the most anti-artist. Bandcamp is at the opposite end, having completely banned AI music.One of the most interesting platforms is Deezer. They chose early on to label AI-generated music clearly and invested in detection technology. Instead of clamping down immediately, they allowed uploads but tracked everything. This gave them the ability to collect detailed data and analyse trends.From their data, in January 2025 there were approximately 10,000 fully AI-generated tracks being uploaded per day, representing about 10% of daily uploads. By June, that rose to around 18%, and by November 2025 it had reached 34%, or about 50,000 new AI-generated tracks per day.There is no human production system capable of producing 50,000 quality tracks per day. That scale is only possible with generative AI.They also conducted a study showing that 97% of listeners could not reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-made music. That’s a striking figure.In January of this year, Deezer reported that its detection system identified over 13.4 million AI tracks during 2025. They also stated that up to 85% of streams on fully AI-generated tracks were fraudulent. As a result, they announced that these tracks would be removed from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists.This is significant because it means real listeners and real streams can be directed back towards human-made music, and the royalty pool can remain focused on human creators.This is not what’s happening on Spotify or YouTube Music. Both platforms played a role in the original scraping of music to train AI systems, and now they are fully integrating AI features without offering users meaningful choice. There are also growing reports that their algorithms are prioritising AI-generated content.What Deezer has done is shine a light on what’s actually happening by collecting and sharing data. They have also announced plans to commercialise their detection technology for external partners.If you enjoyed this podcast please share it or consider leaving a comment or review, it really helps me out. You can also support me and my work by becoming a paid member, it’s €5 per month on Substack and Patreon. And lastly, you can still find me on YouTube / Instagram as @the_persona_project__ & @laurasheeran_ie That’s all for now. Thanks for being here, and remember: Put humans first. Don’t feed the machines. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurasheeran.substack.com/subscribe