On July 10, key stakeholders in the recorded music industry came together to announce a new system for identifying fully and partially AI-generated songs.
Since the release of Ghostwriter’s so-called “Fake Drake” song “Heart On My Sleeve” in May 2023, the industry has been grappling with how to deal with AI-generated material on streaming services, with DSPs each proposing their own set of guidelines. That includes anything from tagging AI-generated songs as such, to enhanced streaming fraud detection, to demonetization. But Sam Duboff, global head of policy, music business at Spotify, told Billboard in 2025 that “it’s still early days for AI tech” — leaving many platforms hesitant to create any stringent long-term rules that could lead to unintended consequences.
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RIAA, IFPI & More Come Together to Create System for Tagging AI-Generated Songs
Though the technology might be relatively new, French streaming service Deezer says the tide of fully AI-generated songs delivered daily to its platform is rising fast. As of Tuesday (July 21), Deezer claims up to 50% of all songs delivered daily are fully AI-generated. Pair that with a recent study from Luminate that noted 42% of respondents are less interested in songs when they learn generative AI was involved in their creation, and it seems to many like the right time to take another step forward.
Still, streaming services like Tidal and Apple Music have expressed the need for labels and distributors, who are the ones delivering AI content to streaming platforms, to step up and help. “I really need the content providers and the labels to take responsibility,” Apple Music chief Oliver Schusser previously told Billboard. A Tidal spokesperson echoed that sentiment in June, stating, “The responsibility to identify and tag AI-generated content should not rest with Tidal alone.”
Now, the recorded music industry is heeding the call with its own ideas, creating a system that could be uniformly implemented across platforms — that is, if all the streaming services and related stakeholders sign on. The road ahead, however, may still take months to figure out, and three sources have told Billboard they have concerns that the AI-assisted tag proposal, in particular, may be a step too far as AI becomes a more normal part of the creative process.
So, how will the process work? How will songs be tagged correctly? And how does something like this compare to previous instances in music history, such as the parental advisory sticker, that have sought to provide warnings to listeners about the content they’ll be hearing? Here are the answers to some of those questions.