Apple Music is introducing a new set of metadata requirements designed to bring greater transparency around AI-generated content to the music industry.
The platform has launched what it is calling Transparency Tags — a system of disclosure labels that record labels and music distributors can begin applying to content delivered to Apple Music immediately, and will be required to use when delivering new content in future.
The move was announced in a newsletter distributed to industry partners this morning (March 4).
The new framework covers four key creative elements: Artwork, Track, Composition, and Music Video. The Artwork tag, applied at the album level, flags when AI has been used to generate a material portion of static or motion graphic artwork.
The Track tag — available at the track level only — is used when AI generates a material portion of a sound recording.
The Composition tag covers AI-generated lyrics or other compositional elements, while the Music Video tag applies to any visual content, whether bundled with albums or delivered as standalone.
Labels and distributors can apply multiple tags simultaneously
In the newsletter, Apple said that “similar to genres, credits, and other metadata,” it defers to content providers to determine what qualifies as AI-generated content.
“Proper tagging of content is the first step in giving the music industry the data and tools needed to develop thoughtful policies around AI,” Apple said in the newsletter, “and we believe labels and distributors must take an active role in reporting when the content they deliver is created using AI.”
The company added that the tagging requirements provide “a concrete first step toward the transparency necessary for the industry to establish best practices and policies that work for everyone.”
The announcement places the responsibility for disclosure squarely on the content supply chain rather than at the platform level — a notably different approach to that being pursued elsewhere in the streaming industry.
Deezer, for example, has spent the past year building its own AI detection infrastructure, identifying AI-generated content through technical analysis rather than relying on self-reporting.
The contrast with Apple’s framework is stark: where Apple is asking labels and distributors to declare AI content at the point of delivery, Deezer is catching it independently at the platform level — without any requirement for upstream disclosure.
The scale of what Deezer is detecting underlines why the industry is moving on this now.
The Paris-based platform revealed in January that it is now receiving over 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day — up from 30,000 in September, 50,000 in November, and just 10,000 when it first launched its detection tool in January 2025. Synthetic content now accounts for roughly 39% of all music delivered to the platform daily, and Deezer says it has detected and tagged over 13.4 million AI-generated tracks on its platform in total.
Crucially, Deezer’s data suggests the primary driver of AI music uploads is fraud rather than creative intent.
The platform reported that up to 85% of all streams on AI-generated music were fraudulent in 2025 — up from 70% the previous year — and that those streams are demonetised and removed from the royalty pool. By comparison, streaming fraud across Deezer’s entire catalog accounted for 8% of all streams in 2025.
“We know that the majority of AI-music is uploaded to Deezer with the purpose of committing fraud, and we continue to take action,” said Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer.
Deezer has since moved to license its detection technology to the wider industry, with French collecting society Sacem among the first partners to trial the tool. The company claims its system can identify 100% AI-generated music from generative models including Suno and Udio.
Apple’s transparency tag system does not include any visible enforcement mechanism or cross-verification process, and the technical specification, which you can see here, and below, describes the tags as optional for now, noting that if omitted, none is assumed.
Music Business Worldwide