Deezer: 44% of daily uploads are AI; most plays demonetized

Deezer reported that 44% of daily new uploads to its streaming service are AI-generated, amounting to nearly 75,000 artificial tracks a day and more than 2 million a month. The company disclosed the figures on Monday and said the large volume has not produced matching listener demand.

The platform’s detection system identified a majority of plays on AI tracks as inauthentic and removed those plays from royalty calculations. Deezer reported that roughly 85% of streams on AI-labeled tracks were flagged and demonetized, and that AI music accounts for about 1 to 3 percent of total plays on the service.

Deezer said it deployed a patent-pending AI music detection tool in January 2025 and began explicitly tagging AI-generated content in June 2025. The company reported the system has 99.8% accuracy and has flagged more than 13.4 million AI tracks in its catalog so far this year.

To create a technical distinction between AI and human recordings, the platform began storing only low-resolution versions of detected AI tracks starting Monday. The company described that measure as an additional control to limit the availability of high-quality AI files.

Deezer commissioned a blind listening study with 9,000 participants across eight countries. The company reported that 97% of participants could not reliably distinguish AI-generated music from human-made music by ear. About 80% of respondents said fully AI-produced songs should carry clear labels.

Legal enforcement has followed reports of fraud tied to synthetic music. A North Carolina man, Michael Smith, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after investigators concluded he used AI and automated accounts to collect more than $8 million in royalties; prosecutors said he agreed to forfeit the payments and faces up to five years in prison. Federal authorities have also filed charges in a separate case alleging roughly $10 million in fraudulent AI-driven streams.

“AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon, and as daily deliveries keep increasing, we hope the whole music ecosystem will join us in taking action to help safeguard artists’ rights and promote transparency for fans,” Alexis Lanternier, Deezer’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Deezer said it is publishing its figures to encourage industry-wide efforts on detection, labeling and protecting artist compensation. The company described itself as the first major streaming service to tag AI tracks and to release concrete metrics on upload volumes while implementing technical limits on AI content.