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Nearly half of new music on Deezer is AI-generated
21 Apr 2026

Deezer, a leading global music streaming platform, has reported that nearly 44% of the new tracks uploaded to its service are AI-generated.

The company receives nearly 75,000 such tracks every day and over two million every month.

Despite this massive influx, consumption of these synthetic tunes remains low at just 1-3% of total streams.

AI tracks on the rise
Tool effectiveness

Deezer's AI detection tool, which has been monitoring such content since 2025, has flagged over 13.4 million tracks as AI-generated.

However, a large chunk of these streams are identified as fraudulent and demonetized by the platform.

In fact, a recent study by CISAC and PMP Strategy warns that nearly 25% of creators' revenues could be at risk by 2028 due to this trend.

Musician made $10M in royalties using bots to stream songs
Revenue manipulation

Fraudulent actors are increasingly flooding platforms with millions of AI-generated songs and streaming each one just enough times to earn revenue.

This practice has been used by musicians like North Carolina-based Michael Smith, who reportedly made nearly $10 million in royalty payments across various streaming platforms using this method.

Smith uploaded thousands of AI-generated tracks and deployed bots to stream them repeatedly in small increments.

Impact on genuine artists and Deezer's response
Ecosystem distortion

The use of bots to manipulate play counts has a major impact on platform recommendation algorithms, making it harder for genuine artists to gain visibility.

Over time, these bot-driven streams also distort consumer data, which artists increasingly rely on to plan tours, releases, and marketing strategies.

To combat this issue and protect genuine creators, Deezer has introduced a new artist-centric remuneration model aimed at tackling fraud.

New remuneration model to tackle streaming fraud
Remuneration reform

Deezer's new remuneration model caps streams from individual users at 1,000 to prevent bots from artificially inflating streams for financial gain.

If a single user exceeds this limit, the royalties generated for the artist are significantly reduced.

This system could play a crucial role in protecting artists by limiting the impact of fraudulent practices that distort revenue distribution on music streaming platforms.