YouTube Music Rolls Out Labels for AI-Generated Content

YouTube Music is introducing labels for AI music on the platform, the streamer announced on Wednesday (Oct. 14).

The new labels will be applied to songs that were “created primarily using generative AI,” according to a YouTube Music blog post. That “includes using a generative model to create the composition and vocals.” The labels will also apply to music content on the main YouTube app.

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On YouTube Music, the AI labels will show up directly on the player page while listening to a song in which “AI played a significant role,” the blog post states. When a user taps the label, a menu opens up sharing more information.

The blog post states that YouTube Music is “teaming up with music partners” and utilizing its own detection tools to identify tracks that are AI-generated, while “applying the same labeling principles already used across YouTube.” In 2024, YouTube unveiled a tool that would require creators to disclose when “realistic content — content a viewer could easily mistake for a real person, place, scene, or event — is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI.”

According to YouTube’s previously published disclosure guidelines around AI content, its “Made with AI” label indicates that a video contains content “that has been meaningfully altered or synthetically generated with Gen AI tools” — a requirement that now extends to YouTube Music. The guidelines add that the “Made with AI” label is applied to content that creators manually disclose in the YouTube Studio workflow; content that uses YouTube’s generative AI tools; and content that contains “valid Content Credentials data indicating the entire video is made with AI.” If creators don’t disclose their use of AI, YouTube has the ability to apply the “Made with AI” label to content on its own.

The use of AI labels at streamers has been growing over the last several months. In August, Spotify announced that it would be introducing a label for AI-generated artists, music from which will not be included in personalized recommendations on the service. Also in August, Apple Music said it was working on introducing AI labels on the platform for music that content providers disclosed was “materially generated using AI”; as Apple Music head Oliver Schusser previously told Billboard, the company uses a detector internally to monitor AI content. In July, a coalition of companies representing the recorded music industry, including the IFPI, RIAA and A2IM, also proposed the widespread creation of AI labels for music on streaming services.