Spotify And UMG Announce Licensing Deal To Allow for AI Covers and Remixes billboard.com/pro/spotify-an…

one of our most exciting launches ever:

With all of the advances in AI, a lot of users have been asking us for better verification of who is a real artist or musical act in 2026. So - following up on our launch of SongDNA last month - a feature that traces the full history and craft of all the participants that went it to creating any track on Spotify (and that already has 52 million users after only 4 weeks!) - we are now also launching the ”The Verified by Spotify” program, to help you as a listener easily understand what you’re hearing, from a trusted source. We hope you’ll like it. 💚🎶

in the age of AI, authenticity & trust have never been more important, and we've been hearing consistently from fans that it's harder than ever to know what's legitimate. so we've made 'artist Identity & trust' one of our very top priorities in 2026. in the past weeks at @spotifyartists, we've rolled out Artist Profile Protection (so artists can protect their profiles from bad actors) and AI credits (so artists can be transparent with listeners when AI plays a significant role in their creative process). today, we're launching our next effort — Verified by Spotify. as AI tools get more sophisticated and the amount of music released multiplies, it's going to get harder and harder for platforms to identify everything that is deceptive with reliability. that makes it more important than ever for platforms to affirmatively certify and elevate what is *real* and authentic. our team is reviewing hundreds of thousands of artist profiles to designate artists who are presenting themselves authentically (they are who they say they are) and are building a career in music (not content farms or deceptive AI). manual reviews take a lot of time, so we'll be rolling out the program on an ongoing basis. we also added a new 'artist details' section to all profiles. think of them like nutritional facts you read before eating packaged goods — but for music! they're based on spotify data, helping fans identify which artists are actively touring, getting playlisted, building a catalog over years. read more here: newsroom.spotify.com/2026-04…

we announced a new beta feature last week: as artists start submitting detailed AI credits through their label or distributor, they'll be displayed across spotify. this is just a first step in our long-term commitment to transparency for listeners (songDNA & expanded song credits as other recent examples). we know it's not a complete solution on its own — building a truly comprehensive system is a challenge that requires industry-wide alignment — but we didn't want to wait to get started.

Spotify credits shows if theres AI now??? 👀

given it's one of the most requested features i hear from artists, i'm so excited we're launching the beta for artist profile protection today. when turned on, it adds a new step for artists in @spotifyartists, where they review new releases that list them as an artist, actively approving them before they can appear on their profile. that means spammy releases won't show up on your profile or get recommended to your listeners. we're excited to be the first streaming service to address this problem that has plagued the entire industry for years. we're testing it out first with thousands of artists starting today and will roll it out more broadly as soon as we can. it's a particularly complex feature, so i broke it down in this video. or you can read more in our blog: artists.spotify.com/blog/int…

Spotify co-CEO @GustavS says the biggest misconception about Spotify is that it pays artists less than other streaming companies. "[Spotify] paid out over $70B to the music industry, $11B of those just last year. That's more than anyone has paid anyone ever in the music industry."

enjoyed breaking down 2025 spotify royalties with @musicbizworld musicbusinessworldwide.com/8…

today, we published our annual loud & clear report — sharing troves of transparent data about 2025 royalties on @Spotify. 5 years in to loud & clear, we're still the only streaming service that shares royalty data like this b/c we think artists deserve to understand how streaming economics work and know the revenue opportunity on each service. i've attached some of my favorite takeaways to this tweet, but you can check out the report yourself at the link — including a 'payouts' section where you can see exactly how many artists generated different levels of revenue in 2025, from $1k through to $10m. loudandclear.byspotify.com/

Today, we updated our annual Loud & Clear report, designed to demystify how artists earn money through streaming, and highlight the evolving global music landscape. We believe in showing you the full picture. That's why we share a level of royalty data that no other streaming service publishes. Spotify pays the majority of every dollar we generate from music back to your selected rights holders (record labels, publishers, PROs, collecting societies and distributors). 🎶In 2025, that added up to more than $11 billion, the the largest annual payment to music from any retailer. And these payouts aren’t concentrated to a small number of superstar artists, either. Once again, roughly half of royalties were generated by independent artists and labels. Spotify alone has now paid out nearly $70 billion all-time to music rights holders to date. 🧵Here are the 2025 Takeaways you need to know.

Our editors pick the Greatest Pop Songs of the Streaming Era (2015-present) ✨ 100 songs that helped shape the sound of pop in the streaming era.

annual year-end favorites list! movies: marty supreme, one battle after another, twinless, sorry baby, wake up dead man, is this thing on? tv: platonic, diplomat, the rehearsal, gilded age, adolescence, english teacher, beast in me, white lotus theater: weer, john proctor is the villain, dorian gray books: early thirties (by @jduboff!), powerfully likeable (by kate mason!), great black hope, flashlight, something rotten albums: mayhem, lux, west end girl, if you asked for a picture, art of loving pods: good hang, pivot, the town, served, popcast

Spotify has both ad-supported and paid streams. All listening activity matters. But I think it’s right to weight paid streams more. People paying ~$150 per year for music…it means more, shows a greater level of fan intent, and is better for artists and the ecosystem.

our music videos journey in the US starts today! limited catalog at first, but we'll be expanding quickly over the coming months. really love the UX that the team has built, allowing listeners to toggle seamlessly between the audio and video. newsroom.spotify.com/2025-12…

happy wrapped day!

happy to contribute to @TheWebbyAwards's trend report on creative excellence in the age of AI. lots of interesting perspectives in there from leaders across industries: webbyawards.com/events-and-i…

really excited about these three new features … making it way easier and more fun for fans to dive into the creative world behind the music they love: artists.spotify.com/en/blog/…