Ninety-seven per cent of people surveyed could not tell the difference between fully AI-generated music and human made music in a new survey from Deezer and Ipsos.
The survey comes as an AI “band” – Breaking Rust – hit number one on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and as artists voice their concerns about copyright, AI transparency, and fair compensation.
The survey reached 9000 listeners across the UK, US, Canada, Brazil, France, Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. A majority (71%) were surprised by inability to identify AI-generated music, with more than half (52%) feeling uncomfortable by not being able to tell the difference.
The study revealed that nearly half (45%) of participants would like to filter out 100% AI-generated music from their streaming platform, while 40% said they would skip AI music without listening if they came across it.
Music listeners overwhelmingly agreed (80%) that 100% AI-generated music should be clearly labelled to listeners, with 73% saying they would like to know if a music streaming service is recommending AI music.
Further, 52% said that 100% AI-generated songs should not be included in charts alongside human-made songs, with only 11% thinking AI-generated songs should be treated equally.
This sentiment may be too little too late, however, as Breaking Rust’s Walk My Walk, a country song, topped Billboard’s country chart last week.
Billboard said that other AI artists are gaining traction and popularity – according to Spotify, Breaking Rust has more than two million monthly listeners, and is not flagged by Spotify as being AI.
Many music listeners are concerned about fairness to artists when it comes to AI – 65% say AI should not be allowed to use copyrighted material for training to create music, with 73% calling the practice unethical.
Seven in ten think the practice threatens the livelihood of artists, with 69% thinking AI-generated music should receive a lower payout from streaming services than human-made music.
Copyright infringement is already a major concern for artists – two AI music startups were sued by major record labels last year over copyright infringement to produce songs. Anthropic also received a lawsuit from music publishers over allegedly training its AI chatbot Claude on copyrighted music.
Recommended reading
Mainstream streaming services are already notoriously difficult to profit from for small artists, and while many consumers are comfortable with AI recommending songs (46%), users are concerned about a lack of creativity and revenue for human artists.
While half (51%) think AI will have a significant role in music creation in the next ten years, the same amount think that AI will lead to more generic sounding, low-quality music being released.
Overall, 64% think that AI could lead to a loss of creativity in music production.
It remains to be seen though, if this concerned consumer response will ripple effectively into the music industry, or if we will have to get used to seeing more AI bands penetrating the charts.