How Do Their Proposals for Charts and Streaming Services Compare?
Analysis by Carlos Passage
Kristin Robinson, in her Billboard article “Record Companies Want to Regulate AI Tracks: How Do Their Proposals for Charts and Streaming Services Compare?”, compares two initiatives from the recording industry to control how AI-generated or AI-assisted music is handled: one for streaming services and another for the charts.
Proposal for Streaming Platforms (DSPs)
The main idea is to clearly identify songs that use AI. Two categories are proposed:
- AI-generated: AI generates the lead vocals, main instruments, or virtually the entire song using prompts.
- AI-assisted: The creation remains primarily human, but AI is used for certain expressive elements.
The proposal calls for these songs to have visible labels, similar to a content warning. The main goal is transparency for the consumer: to let listeners know if they are listening to music generated or assisted by AI.
Proposal for the charts
Here, the goal is different: to determine which songs can compete in the charts. The proposal essentially states that a song created with AI could enter the charts if it remains substantially human-made. It seeks to prevent songs generated with “unauthorized” AI models, especially models trained on unlicensed music, from entering.
Therefore, it’s not simply a matter of adding a label: it’s about deciding whether a song deserves to be included in a chart.
The big problem: how is it verified?
Billboard points out that both proposals have a huge practical problem: verification. The proposal for streaming platforms initially depends on the person uploading the song voluntarily declaring how much AI they used. This opens the possibility that someone might simply not declare it.
For the charts, an even more complicated question arises: What exactly does it mean for a song to be “substantially human”? There is still no universally objective method for determining this.
Where are they being implemented?
The proposed charts have already begun to be implemented in some international rankings, including ARIA (Australia), the Official MENA Charts, and the Official Southeast Asia Charts.
The magnitude of the problem
Digital Service Providers (DSPs: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, YouTube Music) face a much bigger problem than charts. These services receive more than 100,000 new songs daily, according to Luminate. In contrast, a chart can only handle around 100–200 songs. Furthermore, the volume of music entirely generated by AI is growing rapidly. Apple Music reported that songs entirely generated by AI accounted for approximately one-third of monthly uploads, while Deezer stated that they reached over 50% of daily uploads at certain times in June 2026.
The industry is attempting to create two different filters:
“Tell the public when a song uses AI” for streaming services, and “decide when an AI-generated song deserves to compete” on the charts.
