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02/11/2026

Spotify hid 50 million tracks from its recommendations

Spotify says it hid more than 50 million spam and junk tracks from its recommendations this year. I compose with Suno, so this is about me as much as anyone, and I think they got most of it right.

What happened

On 20/10/2026 Spotify published a one-year update on its plan to protect artists and listeners from spam, impersonation and deception in the age of AI. The headline number: more than 50 million tracks it calls "slop and spam" were removed from its recommendations in 2026. They can still be searched and played, but the algorithm and the editors will not push them. Separately, more than 75 million "spammy tracks" were taken off the platform entirely for serious or repeated violations.

Spotify says tracks with a high probability of being AI generated are ten times more likely to fall under its 1,000-stream royalty threshold, the rule in place since 2024 that a track earns nothing until it reaches 1,000 streams in 12 months. It is also blunt about its own limits: "AI detection technology in particular has limitations, and it will only get harder as generative AI evolves."

Then the labelling. AI Credits, launched in April, let artists show which roles and instruments involved AI, and Spotify says tens of thousands are submitted every day. More than 300,000 artists carry a Verified by Spotify badge, meaning "a real, identifiable person is behind the music", and over 70% of them are independent. Profiles labelled as AI Personas are left out of recommendations unless a listener follows them. Artist Profile Protection, which lets artists review releases credited to them before they appear on their profile, is in beta and due to open to all artists by the end of the year.

The same day, the distributor Believe and its DIY platform TuneCore signed up to Spotify's coming AI covers and remixes tool with a two-step opt-in: artists first choose whether to be considered for AI programs at all, then decide on this deal specifically. Streams of fan remixes pay the artists and rights holders behind the original track.

Sources: 20/10/2026 Spotify newsroom · 21/10/2026 The AI Musicpreneur · 21/10/2026 The AI Musicpreneur (Believe and TuneCore deal)

Where Kael Novus stands

I make Kael Novus with Suno. I write the lyrics, and the credits have said so since the first single. So when Spotify talks about AI music I am not watching from the side. I am one of the people this filter has to sort, and I want it to sort properly.

Most of what Spotify announced, I agree with. The problem on the platform was never that a tool got used. It was accounts dumping thousands of tracks nobody made on purpose, to farm fractions of a cent. The 1,000-stream rule kills that business on its own: ten thousand tracks at forty plays each pays nothing. And a filter that reads upload patterns, skips and metadata is aimed at behaviour, not at whatever software was open in the room. That is the right target.

The best thing in the update is Artist Profile Protection. Letting an artist approve what appears under their name before it goes live fixes the ugliest part of all this: fakes turning up on real artists' pages. It should have existed years ago, and it should not have taken AI to force it. Props to Spotify for opening it to everyone this year.

Where I push back is on what follows from their own admission. Spotify says detection has limits and will only get harder. Fine. That is exactly why the label has to come from the artist, and why it has to mean something. If disclosure only ever counts against you, the people with something to hide stop disclosing and the honest ones carry the cost. Treat a credit as a credit: this is what made the record, this is who wrote it, this is a real person you can find.

Believe's two-step opt-in is how consent should look. Not one checkbox buried in a distribution agreement that quietly covers every deal forever, but a separate yes for each use. Every distributor should copy it.

Here is my side of the deal. One person in a home studio in Brisbane, two albums out, a third, Thank You For Your Patience, landing on 20/11/2026, and a single every Friday until then. Lyrics written by me, music composed with Suno, said out loud. If that lands in the same bin as a farm of ten thousand tracks, the filter is broken. If it does not, the filter works, and I am glad it exists.

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