Spotify says it wants to enable listeners to interact with their favorite artists’ music through AI – and that the technology to do so is already built. The barrier? Licensing.
The comments, made by Co-CEO Gustav Söderström on the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call on Tuesday (February 10), land amid an intensifying industry debate over how AI-powered derivatives of existing music should be licensed and monetized – and where fans should be allowed to create them.
Söderström broke Spotify’s thinking on AI music into two categories. The first: net new music created from scratch using AI tools. The second: “derivatives” of existing music – AI-generated covers or remixes.
It’s the second category where Spotify appears most excited. Söderström described “derivatives, new takes on existing music” as “an untapped opportunity for artists to make money off of their existing IP,” noting that in film and TV, existing IP is “incredibly valuable,” but music has so far lacked the rights framework to let artists monetize their catalogs in a similar way through AI.
“Everything we see tells us listeners want to interact with their favorite music and many artists want to let them, creating new revenue from their existing catalog,” Söderström said. “We have the technology and capabilities ready to unlock this in a way that is additive for both IP rightsholders and Spotify.”
He added: “We are ready for the partners that are hungry to seize this opportunity. We think the ones that move first will benefit the most.”
“Everything we see tells us listeners want to interact with their favorite music and many artists want to let them. We have the technology and capabilities ready to unlock this.”
Gustav Söderström, Spotify
He was clear about what’s holding things up: “The absence of a rights framework has kept AI mostly focused on… net new creation,” he said. “We want to work with the industry to fix that.”
Söderström added that Spotify is “already working with” artists and industry partners on the opportunity. He stressed that the company intends to build these features “with artists’ support, not around them.”
He added: “In fact, many artists and industry partners see this opportunity, and we are already working with them on realizing it.”
Co-CEO Alex Norström reinforced the message, stressing that Spotify “will not do deals that aren’t good for artists.”
Spotify’s comments follow similar signals from the other side of the table – specifically, from rightsholders.
Days before the Spotify call, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl told analysts on WMG’s own earnings call that “superfan tiers of the future will all include AI functionality to create,” describing creation as “the ultimate expression of fandom.” Kyncl said WMG is already in discussions with DSPs about incorporating AI creation tools into anticipated higher-priced superfan tiers.
The potential ability for fans to interact with, remix, and create music within Spotify arrives amid a heated debate over so-called ‘walled gardens’ in AI music.
Universal Music Group has championed a model where AI-generated music cannot be downloaded or distributed outside the platform on which it was created – a concept central to its settlement with Udio last October.
Warner Music Group followed with its own Udio settlement implementing similar restrictions. But when WMG then struck a separate deal with Suno, the terms proved notably different – Suno retained much of its core functionality, including the ability for users to create songs and download them.
UMG’s Michael Nash recently argued that without such restrictions, AI derivatives risk allowing users to “effectively use artists’ content and their brand to create derivatives where you’re going to compete with the artist on other platforms.”
Suno, meanwhile, has pushed for what its Chief Music Officer Paul Sinclair has called “open studios, not walled gardens” – maintaining creative freedom within licensed frameworks.
Spotify’s framing appears to offer something of a middle ground. Söderström is not arguing for open distribution of AI derivatives across the internet. Instead, he’s positioning Spotify as the platform where this interaction should happen – where the fans, the royalty pool, and the technology already exist.
“If you’re an artist looking to unlock this potential upside, you’d want to do it on the world’s leading music platform,” Söderström said. “Your fans and the largest royalty pool are already there.”
Asked on the call whether AI music platforms like Suno, Udio and Stability could themselves become DSPs and take share from Spotify, Norström pushed back: “No rightsholder is against our vision. We pretty much have the whole industry behind us.”
Söderström also addressed the first of his two AI music categories: net new music being created from scratch using AI tools.
Asked what percentage of music on Spotify is currently AI-generated, Söderström declined to share a figure. But he said Spotify shouldn’t be the one deciding what tools artists are allowed to use.
“Are you allowed to use an electric guitar, a synthesizer or a digital audio workstation, or AI – or a more complicated question, a bit of AI, like 1%, 15%, 20%, 100%? We don’t think it’s our decision to make,” he said.
What Spotify does think, however, is that consumers should know how music was made. Söderström pointed to the company’s work with labels and creators on metadata standards for disclosing how music was made, as well as its recently launched About The Song feature, which surfaces information about tracks from across the internet.
On the question of AI-generated spam, a growing concern across the industry, Söderström acknowledged that AI can “accelerate the amount of spammy tracks” but argued it’s a familiar challenge for the platform. “Because it’s been a problem for a long time, we’ve been investing more than anyone else in the industry to curb this problem,” he said. “For us, spammy AI music is not a new problem. It’s just more scale on an existing problem.”
Last September, Spotify revealed that it had deleted more than 75 million “spammy tracks” from its platform over the prior 12 months. Meanwhile, rival platform Deezer reported last month that it is now receiving over 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day – accounting for roughly 39% of all music delivered to the platform daily.
Spotify’s Q4 results are covered in full here. Music Business Worldwide
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