Deezer has stopped waiting for Spotify, Apple, and the rest of the streaming business to copy its AI music labels, so it's taking the fight directly to their users.
The company will now let listeners scan playlists from other streaming platforms to detect AI-generated music, according to The Verge. That turns Deezer’s detection system from an internal catalog tool into a public pressure mechanism. If rival platforms won’t mark synthetic tracks themselves, Deezer wants users to see what may already be sitting in their playlists.
“No other company has followed our lead yet, so we decided to make it possible for everyone to check if their playlists include synthetic music, no matter which streaming platform they use,” Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.
Deezer turns AI music detection into a public pressure campaign
The headline feature is simple: Deezer now scans playlists outside Deezer. The strategic move is less simple.
Deezer was already the first of the big streaming services to start labeling AI-generated music, according to The Verge. It also offered its detection technology to other platforms. That offer does not appear to have produced broad adoption. Qobuz launched its own detection technology, while Apple and Spotify have chosen voluntary tagging systems.
So Deezer is changing the venue. Instead of pitching platforms, it is pitching listeners.
That matters because AI music transparency is not just a technical problem. It is a trust problem. If a listener finds synthetic tracks inside a playlist from another service, the uncomfortable question moves from “Why is Deezer making so much noise about this?” to “Why didn’t my main music app tell me?”
That is the pressure campaign. Deezer does not need Spotify or Apple to license its technology for the issue to become visible on Spotify or Apple playlists.
Related XOOMAR coverage on consumer tech trust and platform enforcement includes Siri AI Shuts Up, and Apple Bets You'll Trust It More and Copycat Apps Can Now Get Yanked From Apple's App Store. Those are adjacent platform-control stories, not evidence about Deezer’s talks with rivals.
How Deezer’s playlist scanner challenges Spotify and Apple without making them partners
The new tool works through Deezer’s AI music detector site. Users choose a streaming service, give Deezer permission to access it, and let the tool import playlists. The Verge says the detector is compatible with 20 different platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and YouTube Music.
Deezer then scans the imported playlists for AI content, alerts users to any matches, and gives them the option to share the results. The Verge reports that the import process seemingly uses Tune My Music, which Deezer already uses for library transfers from rival services.
That design matters. Deezer is not just labeling music in its own app. It is trying to make AI detection portable.
For Spotify and Apple, the challenge is indirect but obvious. They do not have to integrate Deezer’s detector for their playlists to become part of the conversation. A user can bring the playlist to Deezer’s tool, scan it, and share what the tool finds.
There is a constraint. Detection tools only work as trust products if users believe the results. False positives would anger artists. False negatives would weaken Deezer’s claim that it can expose synthetic music at scale. The source material does not provide the detector’s error rate, so the credibility of the scanner will depend on how it performs in public, not just how Deezer describes it.
The numbers behind the AI music flood on streaming platforms
The scale of the problem is no longer theoretical.
On January 29, 2026, Music Business Worldwide reported that Deezer was receiving more than 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day, equal to roughly 39% of all music delivered to the platform daily. Deezer also said it had detected and tagged more than 13.4 million AI-generated tracks on its platform.
A later Vice report cited an April 2026 Deezer update saying nearly 75,000 fully AI-created tracks were being uploaded to Deezer daily, or 44% of daily uploads and more than 2 million per month.
The fraud numbers are sharper than the upload numbers.
Deezer said up to 85% of all streams on AI-generated music were fraudulent in 2025, according to Music Business Worldwide. It said those streams are demonetized and removed from the royalty pool. Deezer also said streaming fraud across its full catalog accounted for 8% of all streams in 2025.
That contrast explains Deezer’s posture. The issue is not one viral synthetic song. It is industrialized upload volume, synthetic catalogs, manipulated streams, and royalty dilution.
The source material does not quantify the cost of producing AI tracks, so any production-cost comparison would be guesswork. But Deezer’s own figures show the operational problem clearly enough: platforms are receiving machine-made music at a volume that forces moderation, labeling, and royalty systems to react.
Streaming’s split AI music playbook: Deezer labels, Qobuz detects, Spotify and Apple ask for disclosure
The industry has not settled on one AI music standard. The current split looks like this:
| Platform or company | Approach described in source material | Practical consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Deezer | Detects and labels AI-generated music, and has offered its technology to others | Makes AI status visible to listeners and positions detection as a trust feature |
| Qobuz | Launched its own detection technology | Confirms that detection is becoming a platform-level response, not just a Deezer project |
| Apple | Uses a voluntary tagging system, according to The Verge | Relies on disclosure rather than Deezer-style public detection |
| Spotify | Uses a voluntary tagging system, according to The Verge | Also keeps the burden closer to uploaders and rights holders |
Deezer has also said it excludes AI-generated music from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists, according to Music Business Worldwide. That is more aggressive than simply placing a label on a track after upload.
XOOMAR analysis: voluntary tagging can work when artists, labels, and distributors have incentives to be transparent. It is less convincing as a fraud-control strategy when Deezer itself says a large share of AI music streams on its platform are fraudulent. The fraud claim comes from Deezer’s reported figures. The weakness of voluntary systems is an inference from that setup, not a direct statement from Spotify or Apple.
Deezer’s risk is also clear. It can force the conversation, but larger platforms still have more influence over everyday listening behavior. If they keep voluntary tagging, and users do not pressure them to change, Deezer’s detector may become a public-interest tool without becoming the industry standard.
Artists, listeners, labels, and platforms are not asking for the same detector
Different groups want different outcomes from AI music detection.
Artists and songwriters want protection from royalty dilution and fraudulent streams. Deezer has explicitly tied AI-generated uploads to fraud, saying synthetic music streams are often manipulated and removed from the royalty pool when detected.
Listeners want clarity. Deezer’s own framing centers on transparency for fans, not banning every AI-made track. Some users may not care if background music is synthetic. They may care if a platform recommends it without saying so.
Labels and distributors need categories that can survive disputes. Fully AI-generated music is one bucket. AI-assisted production is harder. The source material focuses on fully AI-generated tracks, especially content from generative models such as Suno and Udio, which Deezer says its tool can identify.
Platforms need scalable moderation. They also face a reputational problem: once detection becomes user-facing, silence can look like avoidance.
Napster to AI playlists: music technology keeps rewriting payout rules
The supplied sources do not provide a full historical comparison, so the useful point here is narrower: AI music is entering the same streaming pipes as human-made music.
That makes metadata newly important. Artist name, rights ownership, explicit content labels, and playlist placement already shape how music is found and paid. AI status may become another core field.
Deezer is trying to define that field before the market settles for weaker disclosure. Its bet is that “synthetic or not” will become a normal piece of playlist transparency, especially when fraud and royalties are involved.
Deezer’s detector is now a test of streaming’s trust layer
The next evidence to watch is not whether Deezer can generate headlines. It already has.
The real test is whether users scan playlists, share results, and create pressure on services that rely on voluntary tagging. Strong adoption would support Deezer’s thesis that AI music detection belongs in the consumer trust layer. Weak adoption, visible errors, or unclear results would undercut it.
For now, Deezer has made one thing harder for the rest of the industry: treating AI-generated music as a back-end catalog issue. If synthetic tracks are flooding uploads and fraud is concentrated around them, playlist transparency is no longer optional window dressing. It is becoming part of how streaming services prove they know what they are serving.
The Bottom Line
- Deezer is shifting AI music detection from a platform feature into a public accountability tool.
- The move could pressure Spotify, Apple, and others to provide clearer AI-generated music labels.
- Listeners may gain more visibility into whether synthetic tracks are appearing in their playlists.
Originally published on XOOMAR. For more news and analysis, visit XOOMAR.
