Spotify Smart Shuffle played a song Id never heard before. It was AI generated.
SOURCE:Mashable Tech
Spotify's Smart Shuffle is recommending AI artists in listeners' queues, raising questions: do we need clearer AI labelling and options to opt out of AI music entirely?
Spotify is still recommending AI-generated music in listeners' queues.
Credit: Getty Images / stockcam
On a frosty, bitterly cold morning, I needed a little background music to motivate myself. On Spotify, I pressed play on The Gap Band's "Early In The Morning," a funk bop from 1982 currently having a resurgence on TikTok.
But then a song I didn't recognise began playing. "I'm Letting Go Of The Bullshit" by Nick Hustles. It blended in well with the other '70s and early '80s era songs that Spotify had shuffled through, inspired by The Gap Band. But the lyrics were strikingly modern. "This year I'm in my flow / F*ck anything that don't help me grow / Fake friends shiesty h**s." The song has a not-insignificant 1,823,488 listens on Spotify at the time of writing.
Curious, I took a look at the artist's profile on Spotify to discover Nick Hustles has almost 600K monthly listeners and an array of popular songs with striking titles such as "Minding My Goddamn Business," "I Do Whatever The F*ck I Want," and "Stop B*tching". I noted there was no author bio in the "About" section of Hustles' profile, so I turned to Google.
That's where I discovered that this catchy little tune I'd been listening to was actually AI-generated. I'll admit: it hadn't even occurred to me that this '70s-sounding funk singer could be anything other than human. Given that 97 percent of people can't tell if a song is made by AI or humans, per a recent Deezer and Ipsos study, I don't feel quite so bad about my lack of discernment. But these are questions we will need to begin asking ourselves as we navigate the AI music era.
How did an AI artist end up in my Spotify queue?
Nick Hustles is an alias for Nick Arter, 35, a human producer who uses AI music tools Suno and Udio. Not only is Hustles not a 1970s era musician, but he also wasn't even born in the '70s. Arter did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.
Then it occurred to me: Spotify actually recommended this artist to me. I hadn't found the track on TikTok or Instagram. It had been suggested in my Smart Shuffle queue — a 2023-launched feature which adds personalised recommendations to match the vibe of the first song you played. So, is Spotify now recommending AI artists to listeners who've previously shown zero interest in anything other than human-created music? Well, it certainly seems that way.
Spotify's mission statement is "to unlock the potential of human creativity". Is it really possible for that mission to sit alongside its role in not merely platforming, but recommending AI music?
A Spotify spokesperson told Mashable that "Spotify doesn't give AI-generated music any special treatment."
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"While we don’t penalise artists for using AI responsibly, we are aggressive about taking down content farms, impersonators, or anyone trying to game the system," they added.
Recommendation algorithms respond dynamically to online trends, often linked to viral social media activity, media coverage, or public conversations. That means if an AI-generated song is going viral on TikTok, or gains press attention, that could result in the song ending up in your Spotify Shuffle queue.
How should we feel about AI-generated songs finding their way into our listener library? Some people aren't necessarily opposed to giving AI music a try, but their open-mindedness begins to shift once they feel deceived. Research by Deezer and Ipsos found that 80 percent of people want AI music clearly labeled on streamers. Transparency matters: a strong majority (72 percent) say they would want to be told if a streaming platform was recommending music created entirely by AI. Almost half would rather filter AI music out completely, and four in 10 say they’d skip it if it popped up anyway.
In Sept. 2025, following user feedback, Spotify introduced an AI labelling system via metadata disclosures, working with the Digital Data Exchange (DDEX). This means AI credits will appear in music metadata on the platform, but that doesn't mean you'll see a visible "AI-generated" badge when you're looking at a track on Spotify. Per the company's announcement: "It’s not about punishing artists who use AI responsibly or down-ranking tracks for disclosing information about how they were made."
Labelling songs and artist pages as AI-generated seems like the bare minimum to avoid misleading listeners.
This is a step in the right direction, but is it enough? Currently (as of Jan. 2026), there is no universal, front-and-centre badge on Spotify track pages to declare it "AI" or "not AI". Those AI disclosures are instead baked into the credits and metadata.
I'd like to know immediately when a song I'm listening to isn't being performed by a human. Labelling songs and artist pages as AI-generated seems like the bare minimum to avoid misleading listeners. I also think there should be an option in Spotify's Settings to exclude AI-generated music from Smart Shuffle. For those who feel strongly about AI-generated music, we should be given the option to opt out, so we don't threaten economic incentives for human-produced work.
It's important to note the distinction between entirely AI-generated work and work that's been produced by human artists with the assistance of AI tools. For generations, tech has played an integral role in the creation of music, such as multitrack recording, digital mixing consoles, Auto-Tune, audio editing software, to name a few. AI tools, when used responsibly to enhance human talent, are undoubtedly the next phase in technology's relationship with music.
What's the problem with AI-generated music?
Spotify's mission statement also states that it provides "a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it." But when the market is flooded with AI slop, we make it harder for musicians to earn a living. Research suggests that music sector workers could lose nearly a quarter of their income to AI by 2028. In the UK, MPs are calling on the government to regulate the use of AI in the music industry and to bring in protections to ensure the public is not duped into unknowingly listening to AI-generated music.
Part of the joy of music comes in marvelling that a human made it. Good music is born out of creativity, innovation, skill, talent, effort, vulnerability, emotion, and perseverance.
80 percent of people want to see legislation to prevent musicians' work being used to train AI without their consent, according to research conducted by UK Music. From the same study, 77 percent believe that AI music, which doesn't credit the original creator, is tantamount to theft, and 83 percent believe that a musical artist's creative "personality" should be legally protected against AI copies.
AI-generated art in general relies on material that already exists. It reduces art to a formula, which it replicates. The result is a homogenous, generic song, a regurgitated version of music that already exists. What you lose is the thrill of discovering a new sound, hearing an artist do something that's not been done before. AI just can't replicate that, and it never will.
Features Editor
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
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