Why Spotify has no button to filter out AI music

in mid-2025, leipzig-based developer cedrik sixtus built a tool to block ai-generated tracks from his spotify playlists after getting frustrated with how many kept appearing. his ai blocker filters out over 4,700 suspected ai artists, using community tracking, high release volumes, ai-style cover art, and external detection tools. hundreds have downloaded it from code-sharing sites. sixtus wants spotify to label and filter ai music itself. "it is about choice – if you want to hear ai music or if you don't," he says. spotify's position is that it's a spectrum, not a binary. "our priority is addressing harmful uses like spam and impersonation, rather than trying to filter music based on how it was made," a spokesperson said. the platform recently added features like songdna and "about the song" for premium users, aiming to highlight human artistry. competitor deezer has taken a stronger stance. it tags albums with ai-generated tracks from suno and udio, and excludes them from algorithmic recommendations. deezer's head of research says its detection tech has a low false positive rate, but acknowledges the challenge of hybrid cases where ai is only partially used. around 80% of respondents in a deezer-ipsos poll said ai music should be clearly labelled. the eu ai act will require certain ai-generated content to be labelled from august 2026, though how spotify will implement that remains unclear.