Spotify says it has removed 50 million AI spam tracks from its platform this year

The music app Spotify said Tuesday that it has removed more than 50 million tracks from its platform that appear to have been created by artificial intelligence as part of its efforts to crack down on various forms of spam that have taken over its service.

Spotify announced last year that it would protect artists and listeners from spam, impersonation, and deception in the age of AI including by keeping AI spam and slop from a user's list of recommendations.

The music streaming platform said it has since removed more than 50 million slop and spam tracks from its recommendations, which is in addition to more than 75 million spam tracks that were removed for serious or repeated violations of the company's rules. 

“Earlier this year, we looked closely at the tracks listeners were skipping, ignoring, or telling us they didn’t want to hear,” the platform shared in a blog post. “A clear pattern emerged: these tracks were consistently ones identified as slop or spam. Over the past six months, we’ve made numerous updates to our recommendation system to remove slop and spam, and surface more music made by authentic, human artists. 

"Our editors hold the same standard and don’t program content identified as slop or spam," the company continued. "Since we made these changes, we’ve seen a marked decrease in listener concerns about this content showing up in recommendations.”

Spotify said it has also improved on tools it created last year to help identify the use of AI in its music, including its AI credits in the information section of a track, it's Verified by Spotify tool that verifies whether an artist is real, and its AI persona badges, which lets listeners know when an artist’s identity is AI-generated.

“This work isn’t finished,” the company said. “AI moves fast, and bad actors adapt just as fast. But as AI makes music more abundant, we believe listeners will value human artistry even more. Our job is to make Spotify the place they find it.”

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.