Spotify (secretly) killed AI music

Author

Andrew Southworth
August 31, 2026

Hey friends!

There has been a lot of changes recently with regards to AI generated music.

The biggest one you may have heard about is Spotify automatically labeling AI Persona’s, and disqualifying them from algorithmic and editorial placement. I covered that in this video, and in a chat with Sam Duboff.

Another big announcement is that Suno is capping downloads to 60 downloads per month, dramatically slowing down people that were uploading thousands of songs per month.

But behind the scenes Spotify was already severely throttling AI music. 

Take a look at these 5 projects. Each one is 100% AI generated with music from Suno. Notice anything interesting?

From 300k per day to 3k per day.

With the exception of 1, every artist lost almost all algorithmic traction by early April. That first one was getting over 300k streams per DAY from the algorithm, and now it gets less than 3,000 per day.

One thing that is very interesting, is for one of these projects we have a situation where some of the music is 100% AI generated and some of it is 100% human generated. Look at this:

Human made song.

Essentially the opposite happened - the algorithm grew dramatically starting around April.

SO what is happening?

In my opinion it looks like Spotify has their own internal algorithm to detect if music is AI generated. My assumption is that they’re only looking for tracks that seem to be 100% AI generated, since when it comes to detection most detection systems are only reliable for this. Then they reduce that song’s prominence in the algorithm.

This is the thing that Spotify hasn’t really talked about. They talked about AI Persona’s, but AI Persona’s are only about the identity of an artist profile, they’re not about the music.

It seems like Spotify didn’t need to do anything about the music because they already killed AI music 3-4 months ago.

What does this mean?

As a human artist, i’m a fan of these changes. AI music has an unfair advantage in that the creators can generate 100 tracks per day without issue, while it might take me weeks or months to finish a track. This levels the playing field.

These changes allow AI artists to exist on the platform without diluting the royalty pool or stealing algorithmic / editorial placement from human artists. Meaning if you’re an AI artist generating music because you think its fun and you love doing it - you still can!

Not all AI music is slop. I’ve met artists who use it in very unique ways, where they put just as much time and care as an artist making everything from scratch. And others that have used it to turn their guitar only demos from 20 years ago into full tracks they can share with the world. Those people can still do that.

But it also means if you were only doing this to make money, it just got much harder.

There still are plenty of ways to promote and make money with AI music (which I won’t be talking about publicly), and there are plenty of loopholes (even on Spotify). But it slows this down dramatically.

Think about it this way… The locks on your front door or car only keep honest people honest. Every lock can be broken or picked. If someone wants to get in, they’re going to get in. But that lock stops 99% of people from trying, just like how 99% of AI artists who were only in this for the money are probably going to move onto some other get rich quick scheme.

Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

  1. My courses. Spotify Growth Machine teaches you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music on Spotify. YouTube Growth Machine teaches you how to grow a YouTube channel organically and how to use YouTube ads. Fan Growth Machine teaches you how to build a website, online store and grow your email list.

  2. My ad agency Southworth Media specializes in running Meta conversion ads to promote your music on streaming platforms, email list growth, tour promotion and more.

  3. Website / Store / Funnels. MusicFunnels and FanFunnels are the best all-in-one platforms for music artists to make a website, online store, sales funnels, build a mailing list and more!

  4. 1-on-1 consulting. You can book 1-hour calls with myself or my team here.

New Content

It seems like most people have no idea how music streaming platforms actually pay artists.

You can have daily social media content promoting your music for less than 1 hour per week, here's how.

Southworth Media

Southworth Media provides digital music marketing solutions to artists, managers and record labels.

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