YouTube Music faces backlash over AI-generated songs

YouTube Music is facing growing criticism from users who say their recommendations are increasingly filled with unwanted AI-generated tracks, undermining the core promise of music streaming.

The issue has been highlighted by multiple subscribers on Reddit, who report that their mixes, autoplay queues and suggested playlists are now dominated by synthetic music they never asked for. The complaints raise fresh questions about AI music, streaming algorithms, and user trust.

According to users, these tracks usually belong to unknown or pseudo artists with huge music collections with general song title names. A regular user complained of being “flooded with AI slop” replacing music that previously matched her listening preferences.

The part of this story that has angered listeners the most is that the media is hard to remove. They would tap the thumbs-down button or click "Not Interested", but only one song would be eliminated. Soon enough, other AI music would pop up. However, several users say that these songs might come from the same AI musicians.

For paid subscribers, this situation has caused much frustration. Many people believe that YouTube Music has failed in providing them proper recommendations for quality content, which people actually seek when settling for paid services in music streaming.

Like all platforms, YouTube Music is very reliant on algorithms to keep their users engaged. However, with the growth of generative AI music and the ability for users to easily produce and upload the content, platforms are beginning to see a flood of music created, but not created through human ingenuity.

Moreover, Deezer, an online French music streaming platform, is already beginning to tag or curate AI-generated content. According to users, the problem is also being faced by Spotify, but it is providing better clarity.