97% Fail Test: Listeners ‘Cannot Tell’ AI Music from Human Artists

The vast majority of music listeners can no longer distinguish between a human-created track and one entirely generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), according to a new survey by Ipsos for streaming platform Deezer.

In a blind test, a staggering 97% of the 9,000 people questioned across eight countries failed to differentiate between human music and 100% AI-generated tracks. The test involved two AI pieces and one real song.

The survey, which ran online from October 6 to 10 in the US, Canada, Brazil, UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, and Japan, highlights the startling progress of music-generating AI.

Concerns Over ‘Generic’ Music and Creativity Loss

While nearly half of respondents feel AI could guide them to new song discoveries, listeners are more pessimistic about the long-term impact of AI music creation.

• 51% of those surveyed believe that AI will lead to an influx of “lower quality, more generic” songs.
• Nearly two-thirds (64%) worry that AI poses a risk of “a loss of creativity in musical production”.

Alexis Lanternier, Deezer’s CEO, stated that the results “clearly show that people care about music and that they want to know if they are listening to a track created by a human or by an AI.”

Deezer’s Stance and The AI Influx

The French streaming company, Deezer, claims to be the only audio platform to systematically flag titles entirely generated by AI with a user-facing mention.

The company noted a dramatic rise in AI-generated tracks being delivered to its site:

• In January, AI tracks accounted for one in ten songs delivered on a given day.
• Ten months later, that figure has soared to 34% of all titles, which equates to almost 40,000 per day.

Despite this rapid increase, these tracks currently account for a very small share of overall listens.

Industry Response

The sudden popularity of the AI-generated group, The Velvet Sundown, on competitor platform Spotify in June—with their most popular song exceeding three million listens—sparked significant debate.

Spotify, the Swedish market leader, has itself faced accusations of being opaque regarding AI use. In September, the company announced measures to encourage artists and publishers to be more transparent about the use of AI in their work.

Source: Defi Media