Deezer crossed a line in June 2026. More than half of the songs uploaded to its platform that month were built entirely by software1. Eighteen months earlier, barely one in ten were1.
This flood is real. A second number cuts against it. Those same AI tracks draw just 1 to 3 percent of all listening on Deezer1. The gap between those two numbers is this piece's subject.
The flood, measured
Deezer built its AI-detection tool in January 20251. That month, AI tracks were one in ten of its daily uploads, about 10,000 songs3. The share only grew from there1.
Across seven checks since, Deezer's reported share ran 10, 18, 28, 34, 39, 44, then just over 50 percent123. By April 2026 that was 75,000 tracks a day3. Come June it reached 90,0002.
AI uploads climb from 10 percent of Deezer's output to more than half in 18 months
Share of Deezer's daily music uploads tagged as fully AI-generated, January 2025 to June 2026
Sources: Deezer Newsroom [1]; TechCrunch [2]; TechCrunch [3]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.
The numbers behind this chart
| Period | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Jan. 2025 | 10% | |
| Apr. 2025 | 18% | |
| Sept. 2025 | 28% | |
| Nov. 2025 | 34% | |
| Jan. 2026 | 39% | |
| Apr. 2026 | 44% | |
| June 2026 | 50% | Deezer reports this point as "more than 50 percent." |
The tag "fully AI-generated" means software handled the whole recording. A person may have typed the prompt. Software still wrote the melody, played the instruments and sang the vocals1.
Who actually listens
Spotify finds a similar split. Sam Duboff, Spotify's global head of artists, marketing and policy, told ABC News in July that AI tracks draw a tiny slice of plays. "Well under 1 per cent of consumption is going to those tracks," Duboff said. "Listeners don't want it … and we're really seeing low consumption there"5.
Apple Music counts the same pattern. More than a third of its monthly uploads are entirely AI-made, Oliver Schusser, the service's vice president, told Billboard in April4. Those same uploads draw under half a percent of listening time4.
Deezer found a reason for part of the gap. Fraud explains up to 85 percent of the streams its fully AI-made tracks drew in 20251. Deezer strips those plays before it splits the royalty pool.
AI tracks are half of Deezer's uploads but just 3 percent of its streams
Share of Deezer's daily uploads and total streams that are fully AI-generated, as of June 2026
The first column is the share of new uploads built entirely by AI; the second is the share of all listening those same tracks draw.
Deezer counts the upload share from tracks it tags at submission and the stream share from plays across the same window, so the two bars come from one company's own dashboards.
Source: Deezer Newsroom [1]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Daily uploads | 50% |
| Total streams | 3% |
Listeners may still struggle to tell the difference. Ipsos polled 9,000 adults across eight countries for Deezer in October 2025 and played them a blind test. 97 percent mistook at least one AI song for a human one14. "The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they're listening to AI or human made tracks or not," Alexis Lanternier, Deezer's chief executive, said14.
The case that flooding hurts artists
SZA described a cost Deezer's dashboards skip. She told i-D in January that AI covers can beat a singer to her own audience. Her example was Olivia Dean, a British singer who had just released new music. "She can't even collect the streams," SZA said7.
The economics have a name in the trade: dilution. In February, seven artist advocates signed an open letter that named it outright. Helienne Lindvall, president of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, was one of them. "The hijacking of the world's entire treasure-trove of music floods platforms with AI slop and dilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists from whose music this slop is derived," the letter read8.
Here is the mechanism behind her complaint. Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer each pay from one royalty pool per country every month. Every stream pulls from that same total, whether a person made the song or software did. More total streams spread a fixed pool thinner.
British musician Benedict Cork felt the shift firsthand. He told Time in March that the technology moved him from amusement to anger. "The technology is amazing and I use it in my day-to-day life. But we also need to make sure we're keeping artistry and creativity in a sacred space—otherwise we're all screwed," Cork said9.
Sony Music demanded the removal of more than 135,000 AI songs that impersonated its artists in March9. Ormella is a British singer-songwriter with 83,000 monthly Spotify listeners. An AI impersonation of her own voice collected 1,000 plays in a single day9.
AI bands that drew real streams
Curiosity pays too, sometimes. The Velvet Sundown reached 325,000 monthly Spotify listeners by late June 202510. Its follower count sat near zero, and its biography resisted every check10. Deezer's own detector flagged some of its tracks as AI-made10.
Spotify stayed quiet on how the songs got made. So did the people behind the act10. By late July the band's audience neared 1.5 million11.
The curiosity faded fast. Five weeks after that peak, the audience had fallen to about 594,000, a drop near 60 percent11.
Beyond music
The flood runs wider than songs. Getty Images filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 12, 2026, and named generated images among its reasons12. The company carried $2.1 billion in debt against a market value near $21 million12.
Etsy met its own version two years earlier. In July 2024 the marketplace added rules called Creativity Standards13. A seller must now label how each listing got made: by hand, by an AI prompt or by an outside factory13.
What to do
Check a track's label before you stream it on purpose, past habit. Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer each now tag some AI songs, and the habit catches fraud along with curiosity.
Royalty teams should watch their per-stream rate next to their raw stream count. A flat count can mask a shrinking share of a bigger pool.
If you license work to a platform, ask how it draws the line between fully AI-made and AI-assisted. Deezer, Spotify and Apple Music each draw that line a little differently, and the difference decides what gets demonetized.
By the numbers
- More than 50 percent: Deezer's share of daily uploads built entirely by AI in June 202612.
- 1 to 3 percent: how much of Deezer's total streams those same AI tracks draw1.
- 97 percent: the share of surveyed adults who mistook an AI song for a human one in Deezer and Ipsos's blind test14.
- Under half a percent: Apple Music's listening share for tracks built entirely by AI4.
- $2.1 billion: Getty Images' debt load when it filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 12, 202612.
- 594,000: the Velvet Sundown's Spotify monthly listeners by mid-August 2025, down from a peak near 1.5 million11.
- 75 million: spam tracks Spotify removed in the twelve months before its September 2025 policy update6.
- 135,000: AI songs impersonating Sony Music artists that the label had removed in March 20269.
What to watch
Apple Music's mandatory AI labels take effect later this year, and Spotify's DDEX credit standard follows close behind. Watch the per-stream rate for mid-tier human artists once both land. A steady rate backs Duboff's reading of the data. Lindvall's case gains ground if that rate falls instead.
Sources
- Deezer Newsroom Staff, "Deezer: AI Music Has Surpassed 50% of New Music Uploads for the First Time," Deezer Newsroom, July 21, 2026, https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/07/ai-music-exceeds-50-percent-daily-uploads-deezer/
- Ivan Mehta, "Music Streamer Deezer Says More Than 50% of Daily Uploads Are AI-Generated," TechCrunch, July 21, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/21/music-streamer-deezer-says-more-than-50-of-daily-uploads-are-ai-generated/
- Aisha Malik, "Deezer Says 44% of Songs Uploaded to Its Platform Daily Are AI-Generated," TechCrunch, April 20, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/20/deezer-says-44-of-songs-uploaded-to-its-platform-daily-are-ai-generated/
- Gearnews Staff, "Apple Music to Label AI-Generated Songs With 'Made With AI' Tag by Late 2026," Gearnews, Aug. 21, 2026, https://www.gearnews.com/apple-music-to-label-ai-generated-songs-tech/
- Mawunyo Gbogbo, "Spotify Removes 'AI Slop' and Seeks Transparency From Musicians Who Use AI," ABC News, July 16, 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-16/spotify-making-ai-music-easier-to-detect/106919814
- Spotify Newsroom Staff, "Spotify Strengthens AI Protections for Artists, Songwriters and Producers," Spotify Newsroom, Sept. 25, 2025, https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-09-25/spotify-strengthens-ai-protections/
- i-D Staff, "SZA Exclusive Interview on New Music in 2026, the White House, and AI," i-D, March 6, 2026, https://i-d.co/article/sza-i-d-cover-interview-2026/
- Music Business Worldwide Staff, "Artist Representatives Launch 'Say No To Suno' Campaign," Music Business Worldwide, Feb. 24, 2026, https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/artist-representatives-launch-say-no-to-suno-campaign-ai-slop-dilutes-the-royalty-pools-of-legitimate-artists-from-whose-music-this-slop-is-derived/
- Time Staff, "AI Slop Is Flooding Streaming—and Musicians Are Fighting Back," Time, March 26, 2026, https://time.com/article/2026/03/26/ai-slop-is-threatening-musicians-can-tech-companies-stem-the-tide-/
- Music Ally Staff, "The Velvet Sundown Are a Seemingly AI-Generated Band With 325k Spotify Listeners," Music Ally, June 26, 2025, https://musically.com/2025/06/26/velvet-sundown-are-a-seemingly-ai-generated-band-with-325k-spotify-listeners/
- Music Ally Staff, "AI Band the Velvet Sundown's Spotify Audience Has Fallen Sharply," Music Ally, Aug. 15, 2025, https://musically.com/2025/08/15/ai-band-the-velvet-sundowns-spotify-audience-has-fallen-sharply/
- Reuters Staff, "Getty Images to Go Private After Restructuring Deal," Reuters, Oct. 12, 2026, https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/getty-images-to-go-private-after-restructuring-deal-4944904
- Lauren Forristal, "Etsy Adds AI-Generated Item Guidelines in New Seller Policy," TechCrunch, July 9, 2024, https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/09/etsy-new-seller-policy-2024-generative-ai
- Jesper Wendel, "Deezer and Ipsos Study: AI Fools 97% of Listeners," Deezer Newsroom, Nov. 12, 2025, https://newsroom-deezer.com/2025/11/deezer-ipsos-survey-ai-music/