Spotify Rolls Out AI Persona Badges, Removes 75 Million “Spammy Tracks”

Over the summer, Spotify finally announced a plan to deal with the onslaught of AI slop, which involved "AI Persona" badges for AI-generated artists and keeping their music out of recommended playlists. In a new statement, the streaming service says they've removed over 75 million "spammy tracks" from the platform.The statement also says they've pulled more than 50 million slop and spam tracks out of recommendations and labeled thousands of artist profiles with AI Persona badges. In addition, artists who release AI-assisted songs have the option to identify AI in the song credits."No single signal catches slop or spam on its own, so we combine many: listener engagement and feedback, upload patterns, metadata, and information from multiple third-party AI detection tools," the statement reads. "AI detection technology in particular has limitations, and it will only get harder as generative AI evolves. Using these signals together, we can identify likely slop or spam with more confidence. We also hunt for new tactics, including mass uploads, duplicates, SEO manipulation, spammy playlist networks, and artificially short tracks. As spammers change tactics, we'll keep updating our system...