Spotify pulled 50 million AI slop and spam tracks from its recommendations

Spotify has also made changes to its music recommendation system to highlight songs from human artists.

Spotify has also made changes to its music recommendation system to highlight songs from human artists.

by Emma Roth

Oct 20, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

Spotify says it has removed more than 50 million songs considered AI-generated slop or spam from user recommendations over the past year. That’s according to an announcement on Tuesday, which says Spotify has also made changes to its recommendation system to highlight more music made by human artists.

“Our editors hold the same standard and don’t program content identified as slop or spam,” Spotify says. “Since we made these changes, we’ve seen a marked decrease in listener concerns about this content showing up in recommendations.”

Though Spotify has stopped short of mandating labels on all AI tracks, it launched an “AI Persona” badge for artists that use an AI identity and don’t represent a real person. It also won’t recommend music from AI personas. Other music streaming platforms are taking a tougher stance on AI music, with YouTube Music putting labels on AI songs, Deezer giving users an option to filter out AI slop, and Bandcamp banning AI music entirely.

Spotify says it uses a combination of listener engagement and feedback, upload patterns, metadata, and third-party AI detection tools to determine whether a track may be AI-generated slop. Last year, the company said it took down more than 75 million songs identified as spam. It’s also partnering with Universal Music Group and the independent music publisher Believe to launch a tool for creating AI music remixes.

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