Spotify has announced a licensing agreement with Believe covering AI-powered remixes and covers involving participating artists and labels, including those distributed through TuneCore. The agreement is intended to support Spotify's planned AI music creation tools, allowing eligible users to create new versions of existing recordings while compensating participating rights holders. The tools are expected to be offered as a paid Premium add-on, with artists participating voluntarily through a two-stage consent process. Specific royalty rates, revenue-sharing arrangements, and a launch date have not been disclosed. The agreement expands Spotify's efforts to establish licensed AI music experiences that give rights holders greater control over how their recordings are used.
In a separate update, Spotify reported excluding more than 50 million suspected AI-generated spam and low-quality tracks from its recommendations during 2026. The company also disclosed that more than 300,000 artists have received verification badges and that thousands of AI-generated artist identities have been labeled. These measures are intended to reduce fraudulent or misleading content and improve transparency for listeners and legitimate artists. Importantly, exclusion from recommendations does not necessarily mean the tracks were removed from Spotify's catalog. Together, the licensing agreement and expanded spam controls illustrate Spotify's approach to AI music: developing authorized creation tools while restricting content that could undermine discovery and royalty distribution.
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