Apple Music shares what it’s doing to ‘keep music in tune’ in an AI world

Streaming service Apple Music today shared an open letter with music labels and industry partners titled “What We’re Doing to Keep Music Fair,” reaffirming its commitment to helping the music industry use AI responsibly.

The company said it believes technology should amplify artists, not replace them. Apple says AI music represents significantly less than 1% of all listens on the service, but it is taking the lead in maintaining a level playing field for all creators.

Nonetheless, Apple Music says AI presents an exciting opportunity to help artists find new and innovative ways to tell stories. But it puts in place safeguards to ensure transparency and prevent abuse. Apple doesn’t ban AI-generated music, but it must be clearly labeled and not misleading.

In March, Apple Music became the first global service to add tagging support for AI content. It says major distributors have started providing this information and all suppliers will be required to do so in the future. Currently, this AI metadata isn’t presented to end users in the Music app interface, but it allows Apple to keep tabs on how things are going.

Additionally, Apple has developed internal tools that help identify AI-generated content as part of its ongoing fight against fraud, spam and identity theft. When the majority of plays to an AI song come from stream manipulation, Apple Music automatically removes that song from the service.

In February, Apple Music also doubled penalties for extreme cases of stream manipulation, and the company’s Music Style Guide prohibits the use of AI in deceptive ways.

Apple claims to be leading the industry in preventing feed manipulation. In 2025, it has excluded around 2 billion manipulated streams, redistributing these royalties to its payment pool. The company claims that stream manipulation on Apple Music is less than 0.5%, one of the lowest rates in the industry.

He also reiterates that human curation remains at the center of what Apple Music is. The company’s editorial team remains focused on showcasing the best music, improving recommendations and discovery on the platform.

We’ve also seen Apple use artificial intelligence tools to improve the Apple Music product experience in several ways. This includes features like AutoMix and the recently debuted Playlist Playground which helps users quickly create custom playlists using a natural language prompt.