Music and technology have evolved side by side for centuries. From the earliest bone flutes and stringed instruments to the phonograph, synthesizers and streaming platforms, each technological shift has changed how music is created, performed and shared while preserving its role as one of humanity's most powerful forms of expression.
Today, however, artificial intelligence is testing that relationship in an entirely new way.
Listeners may now unknowingly press play on songs created not by musicians drawing on lived experience and emotion, but by algorithms.
AI-generated artists such as Breaking Rust, Velvet Sundown and Cain Walker produce songs that can be difficult to distinguish from those made by human musicians. A 2025 joint survey by Deezer and Ipsos found that 97% of more than 9,000 respondents across eight countries failed to correctly identify AI-generated music.
French music streaming platform Deezer recently announced that AI-generated uploads surpassed half of all its new daily music deliveries for the first time, averaging around 90,000 tracks a day since introducing its AI detection tool in January 2025.
The announcement has raised broader questions about the scale of AI-generated music across the streaming industry and what its rapid rise could mean for artists.
While no other major streaming service has published comparable figures, platforms across the industry have introduced policies to manage AI-generated music.
Last year, Spotify said it had removed more than 75 million spam tracks during "a period marked by the explosion of generative AI tools." The platform also introduced new policies targeting impersonation, spam and AI disclosures for music.
This year, Spotify and Universal Music Group also announced a new tool that allows fans to create AI-powered covers and remixes of songs by "participating artists and songwriters."
"It introduces a creation model where artists and songwriters can directly share in the value generated through AI-driven licensed covers and remixes on the Spotify platform," Spotify said.
Apple has moved to increase transparency, requiring labels and distributors to disclose when AI has been used in recordings, compositions, artwork or music videos uploaded to its service.
Bandcamp banned music or audio that is entirely or substantially generated by AI.
Similarly, iHeartRadio launched its Guaranteed Human initiative. Billboard reported last year that the radio pledged that it will not "use AI-generated personalities" or "play AI music that features synthetic vocalists pretending to be human."
The rapid rise of AI-generated music has also deepened divisions across the industry.
A 2024 study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) estimated that AI-generated music would generate a cumulative €40 billion ($46 billion) over five years, rising to an annual value of €16 billion by 2028.
It projected that generative AI could account for around 20% of music streaming revenues and about 60% of music library revenues by 2028, while putting nearly a quarter of music creators' income at risk.
Amid such projections, AI music generators such as Suno and Udio have surged in popularity, allowing users to create complete songs within minutes.
For some artists and producers, AI represents an inevitable technological shift.
Producer Diplo urged creatives to embrace the technology on US social media platform X.
“I don’t even need a voice anymore. I can just get replay. I can get the best voice from AI,” he said in a podcast interview. “You’re not gonna win. There is no fighting AI.”
Producer Timbaland has also embraced AI, showcasing on social media how it helped him complete unfinished songs dating back to 2021.
“God presented this tool to me. I probably made a thousand beats in three months, and a lot of them – not all – are bangers, and from every genre you can possibly think of,” Timbaland said, according to Rolling Stone.
Many artists, however, remain firmly opposed.
In 2024, the Artist Rights Alliance published an open letter signed by over 200 artists calling on AI developers and music platforms to stop undermining creators' rights. Signatories including musicians Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Zayn Malik warned that AI posed serious threats to their privacy, identities and livelihoods.
A year later, over 400 artists, including Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Elton John, urged former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to strengthen copyright protections in the age of AI.
As AI-generated music gains traction, artists' groups are increasingly warning that the technology could make it harder for human musicians to be discovered and earn a living.
The concerns have already begun to materialize. In late 2025, AI-assisted artists accounted for one-third of the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart's top 10. AI-generated artist Breaking Rust's Walk My Walk even topped the chart late last year.
Featured Artists Coalition CEO David Martin said such developments reinforce fears that AI-generated music could push human creators to the side.
“The biggest concern for everybody is that AI-generated music is going to swamp the market … and that we're going to be overrun,” he told Anadolu.
Martin raised questions about whether artists will still be able to build their careers in an increasingly saturated market.
“How are the creators going to get their art out into the world and get it heard? Secondly, how are they going to make a living from that art?” he said.
Jess Partridge, executive director at European Music Managers Alliance (EMMA), said AI also raises questions about how streaming royalties are distributed.
“The issue with this is the way that remuneration works, the way that they develop remuneration on these platforms to be percentage based. You had 0.2% of the plays this month so you get 0.2% of the income,” Partridge told Anadolu.
She pointed out that it remains unclear who receives payments when AI-generated music enters the system.
Partridge also warned that even a single AI-track replacing a human artist in recommendation feeds or release playlists could have consequences – especially for emerging artists.
"If only 6% of streams are for emerging artists, and 3% of streams are for AI, then that's a huge number," she said.
Both Partridge and Martin also warned that AI is facilitating fraudulent activity aimed at diverting money from royalty pools.
“We also see that the streams on AI tracks are not necessarily real. So you could very easily create a track, upload it, buy streams, get remuneration. If people decide that this is a way of gaming the system and getting money, then we really will see problems,” Partridge said.
Martin said creators are increasingly worried that their work has been scraped from the internet without their knowledge or consent to train AI models.
“Their work has been used to train the thing that is now trying to take money away from them,” he said.
Copyrighted works should only be used under licensing agreements, he argued, saying that scraping music from the internet does not constitute fair use.
“Creative work is not free raw material for another industry. If it's copyrighted, they need to licence it. They need to pay for it,” Partridge said.
Partridge said EMMA has been working with EU institutions on the implementation of the AI Act, particularly its transparency requirements for training data, but is not “the most optimistic” about how effective the measure will be.
She also pointed to a June open letter signed by several music organizations, including EMMA and the Featured Artists Coalition, opposing artists and songwriters being pressured into AI licensing deals without meaningful consent or being automatically opted into AI-related uses.
“The result is a serious imbalance: artists and songwriters are being asked to give permission without sufficient information, clear terms or guaranteed remuneration,” the letter said.
Partridge noted that they continue to hear concerns about market saturation, impersonation and AI-enabled fraud but lack sufficient data to measure the problem.
“We can't advocate effectively for what is fair and what's correct, because we don't know what it looks like at the moment. And this is on purpose. This is by design,” she said.
She also called for clearer AI agreements, mandatory labeling of AI-generated music and public reporting on detected and demonetized AI tracks, while Martin urged streaming platforms and distributors to establish common standards for AI-generated and AI-assisted works.
Despite their concerns, both Martin and Partridge stressed that they are not opposed to artificial intelligence itself, underlining that the technology can become a valuable creative tool when used responsibly.
“Technology on its own is one thing. Technology in the hands of creative people is a different thing. We're not anti-AI. We're anti-abusive practices,” Martin said.
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