Spotify says it has pulled more than 50 million AI 'slop and spam' tracks out of recommendations this year
Spotify says it has taken more than 50 million slop and spam tracks out of recommendations this year, in a one-year update on its AI protections — a figure that sits on top of the 75 million spammy tracks it disclosed removing in September 2025.
Spotify has disclosed that it has taken more than 50 million “slop and spam” tracks out of its recommendations this year alone, in a one-year update on the AI protections it announced in September 2025. The company published the figures in a blog post, “One Year In: Putting Human Artistry First on Spotify”, on 20 October.
The 50 million tracks are in addition to more than 75 million “spammy tracks” that Spotify says it has removed from its platform altogether for serious or repeated violations of its rules. A Spotify spokesperson confirmed to Music Business Worldwide that the 75 million figure is the one the company gave in September 2025 — covering removals over the prior 12 months — and that the company has continued removing rule-breaking content since but is not sharing an updated figure.
Spotify said it made “numerous updates” to its recommendation system over the past six months after finding that tracks listeners were skipping or rejecting were consistently ones identified as slop or spam, and that its editors do not programme content identified as slop or spam. It said listener concerns about such recommendations have fallen markedly since the changes.
The post also disclosed new figures for its artist tools: more than 300,000 artists now carry the “Verified by Spotify” badge, thousands of AI-generated artists carry “AI Persona” badges and are excluded from recommendations by default, and tracks likely to be AI-generated are 10 times more likely to fall below its 1,000-stream royalty threshold.
Music Ally noted the update functions as an answer to a Duke Sanford Tech Policy Program report that criticised undisclosed generative-AI music appearing in Release Radar playlists.
Sources:
- Spotify Newsroom, “One Year In: Putting Human Artistry First on Spotify”, 20 Oct 2026: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-10-20/prioritizing-human-artistry/
- Music Business Worldwide, “Spotify has pulled more than 50m ‘AI slop and spam’ tracks out of its recommendations this year”, 20 Oct 2026: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-has-pulled-more-than-50m-ai-slop-and-spam-tracks-out-of-its-recommendations-this-year/
- Music Ally, “Spotify has blocked 50m ‘slop and spam tracks’ from its recommendations this year”, 20 Oct 2026: https://musically.com/2026/10/20/spotify-has-blocked-50m-slop-and-spam-tracks-from-its-recommendations-this-year/
More on this topic: all Technology stories
