Deezer says a large share of new tracks uploaded to streaming services are AI-made, yet those tracks make up only a small share of listening. The company launched a free online detector on 11 June 2026 that can scan playlists across 20 streaming services and presents results in 27 languages. Users can connect an account or import playlist links from rivals including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and SoundCloud, then share the scan results. Deezer frames the move as a transparency push intended to limit synthetic music's role in discovery and the royalty pool.

Deezer has been tagging AI tracks on its own platform since early 2025, yet only this month did it make that detection technology available to the public so anyone can check playlists on competing services.

How the detector works

The free tool, launched on 11 June 2026, uses the same core technology Deezer has employed internally to identify fully synthetic songs. Users visit Deezer's online detector, choose a streaming service out of the 20 listed by reporting outlets, and either connect their account or paste playlist links for a scan. Deezer says the interface returns results in 27 languages and lets people share the scan output.

Deezer lists support for major platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and SoundCloud among the broader set of services it can inspect. One technology site reported Deezer claims the detector can identify AI music with near-100 percent accuracy, though that coverage also flagged privacy concerns because the tool requires users to grant a third party access to their streaming accounts in order to scan playlists.

On its own service Deezer has used detection to tag content since early 2025. The company reports it detected and tagged more than 13 million AI tracks during 2025, and says it now receives nearly 75,000 fully AI-created tracks every day. Those uploads, Deezer adds, make up roughly 44 percent of new tracks delivered to its platform.

What Deezer's numbers show

There is a clear mismatch between upload activity and listening. Deezer says those AI-created songs account for only about 1 to 3 percent of total streams on its service.

Mastheads

The company also reports that a large share of listening activity on detected AI tracks is fraudulent: roughly 85 percent of streams on detected AI tracks have been flagged as fraudulent and demonetised by Deezer.

To limit the impact of synthetic music on discovery and payouts, Deezer's platform policy treats tracks identified as fully synthetic differently from ordinary uploads. The company removes fully synthetic songs from algorithmic recommendations and excludes them from editorial playlists, a step it says is intended to reduce their influence on listener discovery and the royalty pool. Deezer has also begun offering its detection technology commercially to other parts of the music ecosystem.

Deezer's public release follows a wider push for clearer transparency around synthetic music and a company-commissioned Ipsos survey. The eight-country Ipsos poll found about 80 percent of respondents agreed that fully AI-generated music should be clearly labelled, and 73 percent said they would like AI music to be tagged on streaming platforms. Separate reporting on the survey included a blind-test finding that 97 percent of respondents couldn't reliably distinguish fully AI-generated music from human-made music.

Deezer's chief executive Alexis Lanternier framed the detector's public launch as a transparency step. "By detecting and tagging AI-generated music over the past year and a half, Deezer has been at the forefront of transparency in music streaming. 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," he said in company press material.

Independent coverage and commentary have pointed out trade-offs for users. Allowing a third party to access streaming accounts to run scans raises privacy questions, and different platforms are taking varied approaches to synthetic music. Some services have focused on artist authentication or labelling rather than blanket detection and exclusion, while a few have imposed stricter restrictions on fully AI-generated recordings.

Deezer says detection is only the first step. The company is weighing further policy measures, including possible updates to supplier policies or additional removals and demonetisation of content. It also points to actions by a handful of services that have already adopted stronger rules on fully synthetic recordings.

For listeners and curators, the detector offers a new way to inspect playlists and spotlight synthetic content. For rights holders and platforms, Deezer's data makes people wonder about how widely synthetic uploads are being monetised and whether current discovery systems are incentivising manipulative behaviour.

At a practical level the public tool gives users immediate access to the same detection logic that filtered content inside Deezer for more than a year. The wider debate around transparency, privacy and platform policy is likely to determine whether other services adopt similar detection or stick to labelling and authentication approaches.

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Deezer says it is weighing supplier policy changes and further removals and demonetisation of fully synthetic tracks. Whether other services follow will depend on trade-offs around privacy, commercial incentives and whether platforms prefer labelling and artist authentication to broad detection.

This article was created with AI assistance.