Spotify Removes 75 Million Spam Tracks as AI Music Crackdown Intensifies

Spotify says it has removed more than 75 million spam tracks from its platform as the streaming service attempts to combat mass uploads, impersonation and low-quality AI-generated music.

The company has also excluded more than 50 million tracks identified as “AI-generated slop and spam” from its recommendations during 2026.

However, an important distinction has been lost in some of the headlines surrounding the announcement: Spotify has not said that all 75 million tracks removed from its platform were generated by artificial intelligence.

The larger figure covers tracks removed for serious or repeated violations of Spotify’s rules, including mass uploads, duplicates, search manipulation, artificially short songs and spam-driven playlist networks. AI tools have made several of those tactics considerably easier to carry out at scale.

Spotify pushes AI slop out of recommendations

Spotify said it had examined the music listeners were regularly skipping, ignoring or actively asking not to hear.

The company found that much of this material had already been identified as spam or low-quality content, prompting changes to its recommendation system over the past six months.

More than 50 million tracks classified as slop or spam have consequently been removed from recommendations this year. Spotify’s editorial teams have also been instructed not to place identified spam inside curated playlists.

“AI-generated slop and spam don’t belong in your recommendations,” the company said.

Spotify combines several signals when assessing suspicious music, including listener feedback, unusual uploading patterns, track metadata and information from third-party AI-detection systems.

The company acknowledged that AI-detection technology remains imperfect and will become increasingly difficult as generative tools continue to improve.

Spotify introduces AI artist labels

Spotify has also introduced several measures designed to help listeners distinguish between human musicians and artificially created identities.

Thousands of profiles now carry an “AI Persona” badge when Spotify believes the identity behind the artist was generated using artificial intelligence. These profiles are excluded from editorial and algorithmic recommendations by default, unless a listener actively follows them.

Artists can additionally submit AI Credits explaining which instruments, vocals or other elements of a recording involved artificial intelligence. Spotify says tens of thousands of these credits are now being submitted each day.

More than 300,000 musicians have also received a Verified by Spotify badge, with the company claiming that verified artists account for more than 99% of the music listeners search for on the platform.

Is Spotify banning AI-generated music?

Spotify is not banning music simply because artificial intelligence was involved in its creation.

Its enforcement is instead aimed at deceptive activity, impersonation, spam and attempts to manipulate the streaming economy through enormous quantities of automatically generated material.

The platform’s 1,000-stream royalty threshold also means that songs must reach a minimum level of engagement before generating recording royalties. Spotify says tracks showing a high probability of AI generation are ten times more likely to remain below that threshold.

The announcement demonstrates the extraordinary scale of the problem facing streaming platforms. AI can now produce and distribute music faster than listeners could ever realistically consume it, forcing services to decide what deserves to be surfaced—and what should be treated as digital spam.

Spotify believes that this abundance will ultimately make genuine human creativity more valuable.

Whether listeners agree may depend on how effectively the platform can keep artificial spam out of their playlists.