Spotify will label AI Personas and keep them out of recommendations

In short: Spotify says it will add “AI Persona” labels to artist profiles that are not real people and will stop recommending their music by default.

What happened

Spotify says it will start rolling out a new label called “AI Persona” in mid-September. You will see this badge on an artist profile if the profile “does not represent a real person.”

Artists can start disclosing that they are an AI persona today. But Spotify says it will not rely only on what artists say about themselves. The company plans to use human reviewers and AI tools to check whether a profile’s name and image look like a photorealistic AI-made identity (basically, a very realistic fake face or person created by software).

If Spotify thinks a profile may be AI-made, it will add a “Likely AI Persona” badge. Spotify says it will review the most listened-to accounts first, starting with those that meet certain audience thresholds.

Spotify also says music from AI personas will not show up in editorial suggestions or your personal recommendations by default. In simple terms, Spotify’s recommendation system (the part that acts like a personalized music clerk) will try not to push these tracks to you.

The company says listeners do not like seeing an artist profile that looks human and then learning the persona is AI-generated. Spotify adds that these labels are about an artist’s identity, not about whether AI was used to help make the music.

Why it matters

If you use Spotify to discover new music, this change could affect what shows up in your mixes and suggested playlists. It is also a sign that streaming services are trying to deal with a growing flood of AI-generated uploads, and to make it clearer who is behind the music you are hearing.

Source: The Verge AI