The Spotify AI slop debacle has dragged on for longer than it should have, and despite the company rolling out measures to counter the spread of AI-generated music, some users are still wielding their pitchforks and torches over the controversy.
I came across a recent Reddit post in the r/truespotify forum that brought attention to the artist page of Selah Stone — an obviously AI-generated artist. But it wasn’t the artist the poster had an issue with; instead they decided to shade Spotify, claiming that the platform has been “creating fake bios and pictures to hide AI artists and further confuse users”.
Now, I’m all for pressuring the best music streaming services to tighten their AI-detection measures, but what the user addressed is completely out of Spotify’s hands, and I’m not the only one who thinks these conspiracy theories are becoming exhausting.
Though AI slop is becoming more apparent to some users (I haven’t run into it myself), Spotify is not the one uploading AI-generated music, nor is it creating the artist profiles that come with it. Every song and album uploaded to Spotify is an action taken by the artist and their team, or in the case of an AI artist, the person who sits behind that façade.
The thing to remember is that Spotify doesn’t take direct music uploads. When a (human) artist shares music to Spotify (or any music streaming platform for that matter), it’s all processed through their label or distributor. Additionally, since Spotify rolled out its new ‘Verified by Spotify’ labels for artist profiles, another layer of reassurance that the artist you’re listening to is not AI has been added.
The same applies to AI artists, and even the music they generate can’t go through Spotify directly. Similarly, they’ll also need to use a distributor, with some common ones including DistroKid and Ditto Music — but the blame doesn’t end there.
Another AI conspiracy doing the rounds is that Spotify is making more profit by allowing users to rack up stream numbers of AI-generated music. This isn’t the case, because of how Spotify’s royalty and pay-out system works.
All subscriber fees are put into a pool, and from there the artists with the highest streaming numbers receive a larger portion of those pay-outs. While it’s not the fairest way of paying artists (even if you don’t stream Taylor Swift, your money is going to her and not necessarily the artists you actually listen to), and it puts indie artists at a disadvantage, AI-generated artists are not making heaps of money, although they do take up spots where human artists should be, something which I agree needs fixing.
In addition, Spotify paid out 70% of its annual revenue in 2025 to artists and rights-holders, so the majority of the money it makes from subscriptions is going right back into the industry, with what’s left over being invested back into the company.
I don’t think such complaints are the real reasons why users are bothered. Instead, I believe it’s Spotify’s transparency issues that are the cause a lot of users’ frustration. But because the platform hasn’t been the most transparent regarding AI music, the annoyance among users has reached boiling point, leading them to come up with ridiculous conspiracies — and now they’ll point the finger anywhere to find new reasons to blame Spotify for the increasing presence of AI slop.
Like many users in the Reddit replies, I also agree that Spotify needs to do a lot more to flag AI-generated music. I think that while the platform has tried to do some good with its online reporting resources, and new Verified by Spotify badges for artists, other services got there first.
However, the finger-pointing has to stop at some point — and those pushing conspiracy theories either need to provide clear evidence to support their claims, or shut up.
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rowan.davies@futurenet.com (Rowan Davies)
