“New Music Friday” might look a little different when you open your Spotify app.
The audio streaming giant has rolled out a new “Verified by Spotify” badge, in a bid to show which artists aren’t AI.
Artificial intelligence-generated music has proliferated on the platform, racking up millions of streams.
But the Swedish company, in a post on its website Thursday, says its green badge, with a check mark, is meant to help distinguish authentic and trusted artists from AI-generated or AI-persona accounts.
According to the criteria on Spotify’s website, artists who receive the badge will have to meet a threshold by having “consistent listener activity and engagement over time.” Spotify says it will also “look for an identifiable presence both on and off-platform.”
That could include linked social media accounts, live performance dates and merchandise sales.
In an email to CBC News, Spotify said artists must have at least 10,000 active listeners over three consecutive months to meet the sustained-listener threshold for verification.
The company says it’s also taking into consideration artists who have “made important contributions to music culture and history as well as those building cultural momentum and relevance.”
Andrew Cash, president and CEO of the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA), says it was “inevitable” that there would be some form of label to delineate what’s AI-generated and what’s not. He believes it’s something artists and fans alike have wanted.
At the same time, he’s concerned that criteria Spotify has established could put more hurdles in the way of new and independent artists trying to reach broader audiences.
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Who’s in the check mark club?
A quick scroll of the Spotify app will reveal superstars like Madonna, BTS and Bad Bunny are among the many music stars whose profiles now have the green badge.
That also includes Canadian artists such as rock group The Beaches, the 2026 Juno Awards’ breakthrough artist of the year Cameron Whitcomb and Polaris Prize-winning Indigenous musician Jeremy Dutcher.
CBC News examined a number of accounts on Friday that had yet to be verified, including Canadian artist bbno$, who has won a Juno fan favourite award and has more than 13 million active monthly listeners.
A range of other notable artists remain badgeless, including Canadian folk music great Joni Mitchell, late crooner Roy Orbison, Latin music legend Celia Cruz, classical composers like Richard Wagner and George Frederic Handel — though Ludwig van Beethoven and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky are verified — and R&B singer and convicted sex offender R. Kelly.
Spotify’s criteria states that artists who haven’t yet received a badge may still receive one in the future, that the initial rollout will happen over the coming weeks and that it will continue on a rolling basis.
As of Friday, badges also did not appear alongside highly popular podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience, Smartless or Good Hang with Amy Poehler.
At this point, the company confirmed to CBC News it has no plans to apply the “Verified by Spotify” status to podcasts, even though AI-generated content is also flooding that market.
AI-driven artist Xania Monet is cracking Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay survey in what is the first known instance of an AI act getting on a Billboard radio chart. Some are concerned about a lack of regulation in the music industry and how AI technology could displace human artists.
Making it real can come at a cost
It’s not the first online platform to turn to a verification system in an attempt to protect the integrity of real people.
Many social media platforms have their own form of verification badges, including Elon Musk-owned X and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.
Each of these platforms initially offered its own verification badges to people with a public persona, including politicians, celebrities, official agencies, media outlets and journalists, as well as users who had developed a substantial following.
Over time, each of those platforms monetized its badges, allowing anyone to purchase verification through a monthly subscription, though eligibility requirements vary.
Spotify, in a response to a question from CBC News, says it has no plans to monetize its verification badges.
But Cash believes there could be a different cost to Spotify’s verification plan when it comes to smaller, independent artists who “already have the chip stacked against them” and it’s something he says CIMA is closely watching.
“The badge clearly, in this instance, is meaning more than just that your music is human generated,” he said.
He’s concerned Spotify’s “arbitrary” 10,000 active monthly listener threshold could also be an “attempt to further cull” smaller artists from the platform.
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Beyond the badge
Spotify says its new verification is still evolving and that some of its approaches could change — including guidelines that, at present, don’t allow for AI-generated work to be eligible for review or approval.
Meanwhile, other platforms have taken different approaches to help subscribers determine what music may have been generated using AI.
Apple Music introduced “transparency tags” earlier this year to alert users to AI-generated music and artwork.
France-based Deezer recently offered its nearly 10 million subscribers the option to filter AI music from their feeds.
Some artists have also begun taking their own steps to protect their music, likenesses and even their voices.
Pop superstar Taylor Swift filed three trademark applications last month in an attempt to prevent misuse of her voice and image through artificial intelligence.
Now more than ever, experts say artists must take control and use technology’s potential in their work.
