Deezer reports over 50% of daily uploads are AI-generated music, takes action against fraud

Music streamer Deezer says more than 50% of daily uploads are AI-generated

Music streaming company Deezer has been tracking the number of AI-generated tracks uploaded on the platform since last year, and the number has constantly gone up. Today, the company said that AI music now represents more than 50% of downloads. Deezer said that AI-generated track uploads were at a peak in June 2026, representing a monthly average of 90,000 tracks per day. The rapid rise of AI-generated music has forced streaming services to decide how much of it they want on their own platforms. There is no single consensus yet on that front. Some take strict steps, like Bandcamp banning such tracks or Tidal cutting off monetization. Meanwhile, Apple Music has a voluntary AI-tagging system, and Spotify developed its own policy about how much AI was used in music-making. Deezer's latest move on this front will involve taking down AI-generated tracks that haven't been streamed in the past six months or are involved in fraudulent streams to drive up revenue. "Deezer has been at the frontline of fighting fraud and reducing payment dilution related to AI music for almost two years. Now that half of all daily uploads are AI-generated tracks, we are taking additional steps to safeguard the rights of artists and songwriters, while maintaining focus on music that fans actually love," Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a statement. The streamer first released stats around AI music uploads in January 2025, when the daily upload volume was around 10,000 tracks or 10% of daily uploads. The number grew to 20,000 tracks, or 18% of daily uploads, in April 2025. It then climbed to 30,000 tracks, representing 28% of daily uploads in September 2025, followed by 50,000 daily uploads, or 34% of daily uploads, in November 2025. This year, it grew again to 60,000 tracks, or 39% of daily uploads, in January 2026. As of April 2026, the figure reached 75,000 tracks, or 44% of daily uploads. Deezer started labeling AI music on its platform last year, and said that its detection tech can also identify tracks generated with models from Suno and Udio, AI-music startups that are embroiled in copyright lawsuits. Earlier this year, Deezer made its detection tech available to other platforms, but it's not clear if any of the major platforms are using the tool just yet. Last month, it also released a tool that can sift through Apple Music and Spotify playlists for AI-generated tracks.

This free AI music detector will scan through your playlists for audio slop

We know that generative AI models are now smart enough to produce images, videos, text, and audio that -- most of the time -- can convincingly pass for something created by a human. These types of content can be produced in seconds for little or no money, which means we're seeing them hit the internet and its various platforms en masse. While there are protections in place to stop impersonation and spam, AI-made music isn't banned on the big audio streaming platforms. In some cases, it's proved as popular as music made by humans without any AI assistance. But what if you want to make sure that everything you hear is authentically human? The music streaming service Deezer has now developed a sophisticated AI song detector you can use for free, across 20 different platforms and for up to 100 playlists -- you don't even need a Deezer account to use it. Here's how it works, and what happened when we put it to the test on a few playlists. Introducing the Deezer AI music detector Defining AI music can be tricky: Many artists use various kinds of software to enhance their music, produce synthetic sounds, and fill in some of the gaps left by human musicians. With that in mind, the line between AI-free music and music made by machines can be a little blurry. Deezer says its detection tool is set up to spot music that's fully AI-generated, and that it has a success rate of 99.8 percent. In contrast, its research shows that 97 percent of its listeners can't tell the difference between AI-made music and human-made music when given a blind test. The idea of the tool is not to ban AI music from Deezer, but to accurately label it so that listeners know what kinds of tunes they're adding to their playlists. According to Deezer, 43 percent of people who switch to the platform from an alternative like Spotify or Tidal and bring their playlists across have some AI tracks in their library. Understandably, Deezer doesn't reveal exactly how it detects AI music to stop people finding ways around it. What it does say is that "generative software leaves specific artifacts in the audio signals of AI music," and judging by the accuracy rate that Deezer is claiming, it works well. Another stat from Deezer: 44 percent of the tracks uploaded to the service every day, around 75,000 songs, are AI-generated. These AI tracks don't show up in Deezer recommendations or editorially curated playlists and account for only 1-3 percent of streams on Deezer -- with up to 85 percent of those streams identified as fraudulently manipulated in some way. Putting it to the test You can try the free Deezer AI detector tool in your browser (available here): Just click Scan my playlists and follow the instructions on screen. Take your pick from the list of streaming services this works with (which is pretty much all of them), then enter the relevant login details so that Deezer can gain access. Deezer says the only data it gets from your account is securely protected, and limited to what it needs to analyze your playlists -- so no contact or payment information, for example. You do have to give Deezer's AI detection tool permission to connect to your account, but you can revoke access afterward through the settings in your music streaming app. I tried this with my Spotify library first, because as far as I'm aware, there isn't any AI music in any of my playlists there. After a few minutes of importing and analyzing, my score came back as 0 percent -- my Spotify account is free of AI, as expected. On the results screen, you get the option to share your score, and of course sign up to Deezer if you haven't already. Next, I gave the AI detection tool a go at my YouTube Music account, which includes some ambient, lo-fi mixes that I think have been generated by AI. This time, the scanner did detect a trace of AI: 1 percent, which is probably about right considering the size and number of my playlists. However, Deezer won't tell you which songs are actually AI-generated. AI music clearly isn't going anywhere, but for a lot of listeners, it's important that it's labeled as such -- so that it can be avoided or not, as people prefer. It seems that this type of AI creation might be a little easier to detect than writing or imagery, which will be useful as the deluge of artificial tunes continues.

Over half of all new music on streaming sites is now AI-generated, and the number is growing rapidly -- but one platform is bringing the hammer down hard

* Deezer announces over half of all daily music uploads are AI-generated * The platform also announces stricter exclusion criteria for AI slop * Deezer says AI slop is used largely for 'streaming fraud', and it's cracking down If you haven't seen an AI slop commercial, social media post or minions meme then you're lucky. I can't say I've heard much AI-generated music (at least, that I'm aware of) but I try very hard to actively avoid it. Despite this, major streaming service Deezer has announced that over half of all tracks uploaded to its library in June 2026 were slop songs. That's over 90,000 new tracks, all of which weren't made by people. This is a big increase in a few months, as we heard in April that 44% of tracks were AI-made, and in December 30% of tracks were AI. That's a rough rate of 3.3% increase every month, suggesting that October 2027 is when we could see Deezer hit the musical singularity. Deezer knows all this because it's been pioneering AI-detection tools, as seen in its AI slop playlist scanner. It also automatically detects and tags AI-made music, and excludes it from recommendations and playlists. And the hammer is coming down harder going forward... First steps in countering the tide When the company shared these AI figures, Deezer also confirmed a few extra steps it was taking to counter the rising AI tide. The streaming service has announced: "Moving forward, Deezer will systematically take down AI-tracks used for streaming fraud, and those that haven't been streamed for at least 6 months", which implies, perhaps optimistically, that there's AI music not used for this purpose. Streaming fraud is the bulk upload of low-quality churned-out music, to earn some quick cash. Think people scripting computers to generate songs -- and I mean 1000s of songs at once -- then uploading them in batches. Why do this? To overwhelm, flood and replace whatever human-made music might otherwise be there for your ears to discover, and rake in the streaming royalties because you just became a big fish. To explain, artist payout from streaming services usually involves everyone getting a share of a large pie, with more streams ensuring you get a larger slice of the pie (money). Beyonce gets a bigger slice of the pie than, say, The Bedford Band (a bad example since we haven't written a single track yet, but you get the idea). Fraudsters upload massive amounts of AI music in the hopes that, if they even get a tiny number of listens on each track, the slice of the pie will scale up due to just how many AI slop tracks they put out. It's not clear how Deezer will identify AI-generated tracks as being used for streaming fraud, as opposed to... whatever other reason you'd create AI music for. It also remains to be seen whether this move will have a significant impact on the amount of AI tracks uploaded, or if it'll be like scratching a layer of ice off a glacier. But it's still good to see a music streaming service try to contend with AI slop, instead of embracing it or just, well... ignoring it. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.