A coalition of music companies, including all three majors and a group of prominent independents, has proposed a set of principles to govern the eligibility of recordings developed with generative AI for inclusion in music charts.
The companies behind the initiative include Believe, BMG, Concord, Dirty Hit, Glassnote Records, HYBE Corp., Mom+Pop Music, Partisan Records, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.
According to a press release issued on Wednesday (July 29), the framework would “establish a clear boundary between human-led creativity and works that are purely synthetic or generated by unauthorized AI models” and “will also help to ensure that any tracks with a fraudulently boosted stream count are not recognized and celebrated in the charts”.
The release added: “These principles would enable official charts to accommodate appropriate use of AI in the creative process whilst remaining an authentic celebration of human artistry.”
According to the companies, recordings developed with generative AI services “must not be included in official charts where there is reason to believe” that they do not satisfy all of the following criteria:
- Any generative AI services used to develop the recording are properly authorised and lawful.
- They are substantially human made.
- They do not raise stream or chart manipulation concerns.
- They comply with applicable laws, including those relating to copyright, related rights, and personality rights.
- The making available of the recordings does not breach the terms of the generative AI service used.
- The use of generative AI services to develop the recording is appropriately signalled to consumers on downstream services (e.g., digital streaming platforms), in accordance with any applicable legislation and/or industry labelling standards.
The principles, according to the companies, “are intended to provide a unified roadmap for the consideration of official chart compilers, industry bodies and affiliated stakeholders worldwide”.
The companies added: “Together, the organizations proposing these principles stand ready to work with charts and industry bodies around the world to discuss these principles and support implementation of these important safeguards for human creativity by charts and industry bodies.”
Elsewhere in Wednesday’s announcement, the companies noted that “Tracks created using generative AI systems have been appearing on streaming services, however many of these have been developed with tools that have been trained on artists’ music without authorization”.
They added: “These tracks are also commonly associated with streaming fraud. To tackle this, record companies are driving the development and licensing of AI music services that respect the rights of music creators. Through the implementation of these principles, human creators will have further assurance that tracks manufactured via unauthorized algorithms unjustly built upon their work – or fraudulently promoted – will not be celebrated by industry charts.”
Today’s news follows the separate push from the RIAA and IFPI for AI-made tracks to be labeled across the world’s streaming services. (Those two orgs are not referenced in Wednesday’s press release).
The plan sets out two voluntary tags applied by artists, labels and distributors: AI-generated for tracks made entirely by AI or with an AI-produced lead vocal or key instrumental, and AI-assisted for tracks made mostly by people that use AI for some elements.
Backers of the RIAA-led group include the Recording Academy, SAG-AFTRA, the American Association of Independent Music and the Human Artistry Campaign.
RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier has cast the labels as a way for fans to back human artists while still allowing AI in the creative process, telling The Wall Street Journal that transparency is “just the best way to have it both ways.”
Those transparency efforts come as figures from Deezer show the volume of AI-generated music reaching streaming services still climbing.
The Paris-based platform said in July that it took in nearly 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks a day in June.
That content made up more than 50% of all new tracks uploaded to the platform on peak days in June, the first time AI uploads had passed human ones, according to the company.
The figure was up from the 75,000 AI tracks a day, or 44% of uploads, that Deezer reported in April, and from just 10,000 a day when it launched its detection tool in January 2025.
Consumption of fully AI-generated music on Deezer remains between 1% and 3% of total streams, though the company says up to 85% of streams on those tracks were fraudulent in 2025.
Deezer began tagging AI-generated music at the platform level in June 2025, and its detection tool is already used by Billboard to determine which chart songs are AI-generated.
Other services have moved differently.
Spotify announced in September that it would support the new DDEX industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits. The company also began testing AI tags in its song credits in April, but only where an artist has chosen to disclose AI use through their label or distributor.
The company said in September 2025 that it had removed more than 75 million “spammy” tracks over the prior year, as it brought in rules against impersonation and AI-enabled fraud.
Spotify also introduced a new verification badge for artist profiles on its platform in April and said that “at launch, profiles that appear to primarily represent AI-generated or AI-persona artists are not eligible for verification”.
France’s Deezer, meanwhile, says it was the first streaming service to detect and tag AI music at the platform level, back in 2025.
Deezer said in April that it was taking in close to 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks a day, more than 44% of everything newly delivered to it.
Deezer has also said that up to 85% of streams on fully AI-generated music were fraudulent in 2025, and that it strips those streams out of royalty payments.
TIDAL set out a policy in June to tag tracks it identifies as fully AI-generated and stop them earning royalties.
High-fidelity rival Qobuz announced its own detection system in February, saying it would tag AI-generated tracks and remove those found to be impersonating artists or manipulating streaming activity.
Apple Music, meanwhile, launched a tagging system in March that relies on labels and distributors to declare AI-generated content, rather than detecting it at the platform level.
The three major music companies, acting through the RIAA, sued AI Music companies Suno and rival Udio in 2024, alleging “mass infringement” of copyright.
Suno settled with Warner Music Group in November 2025, in a deal the companies called a “first-of-its-kind partnership.”
MBW founder Tim Ingham has written on multiple occasions that he believes Warner obtained an equity stake in Suno as part of that licensing deal.
But Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment remain in active copyright litigation with the company, alongside European collecting societies Koda of Denmark and Germany’s GEMA.
A group of independent artists is also pursuing a proposed class action against Suno.
Udio, meanwhile, has struck licensing deals with rightsholders including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, Kobalt, Believe and the National Music Publishers’ Association, according to the complaint.
Sony is the only major music company yet to reach a licensing agreement with Udio, having declined to settle where Universal and Warner did.
In April, Believe and its global platform for self-releasing artists, TuneCore, revealed that they are automatically blocking the distribution of AI-generated tracks partly or fully produced on unlicensed “pirate studios”.Music Business Worldwide