Do you care if the music you’re listening to is artificially generated?

That question – once the realm of science fiction – is becoming increasingly urgent.

An AI-generated country track, Walk My Walk, is currently sitting at number one on the US Billboard chart of digital sales and a new report by streaming platform Deezer has revealed the sheer scale of AI production in the music industry.

Deezer’s AI-detection system found that around 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are now uploaded every day, accounting for 34% of all daily uploads.

The true number is most likely higher, as Deezer’s AI-detection system does not catch every AI-generated track. Nor does this figure include partially AI-generated tracks.

In January 2025, Deezer’s system identified 10% of uploaded tracks as fully AI-generated.

Since then, the proportion of AI tracks – made using written prompts such as “country, 1990s style, male singer” – has more than tripled, leading the platform’s chief executive, Alexis Lanternier, to say that AI music is “flooding music streaming”.

‘Siphoning money from royalty pool’

What’s more, when Deezer surveyed 9,000 people in eight countries – the US, Canada, Brazil, UK, France, Netherlands, Germany and Japan – and asked them to detect whether three tracks were real or AI, 97% could not tell the difference.

That’s despite the fact that the motivation behind the surge of AI music is not in the least bit creative, according to Deezer. The company says that roughly 70% of fully AI-generated tracks are what it calls “fraudulent” – that is, designed purely to make money.

“The common denominator is the ambition to boost streams on specific tracks in order to siphon money from the royalty pool,” a Deezer spokesperson told Sky News.

“With AI-generated content, you can easily create massive amounts of tracks that can be used for this purpose.”

The tracks themselves are not actually fraudulent, Deezer says, but the behaviour around them is. Someone will upload an AI track then use an automated system – a bot – to listen to a song over and over again to make royalties from it.

Even though the total number of streams for each individual track is very low – Deezer estimates that together they account for 0.5% of all streams – the work needed to make an AI track is so tiny that the rewards justify the effort.

Are fully-AI tracks being removed?

Deezer is investing in AI-detection software and has filed two patents for systems that spot AI music. But it is not taking down the tracks it marks as fully-AI.

Instead it removes them from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists, a measure designed to stop the tracks getting streams and therefore generating royalties, and marks the tracks as “AI-generated content”.

“If people want to listen to an AI-generated track however, they can and we are not stopping them from doing so – we just want to make sure they are making a conscious decision,” the Deezer spokesperson says.

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Concerns about artists’ livelihoods

Deezer’s survey found that more than half (52%) of respondents felt uncomfortable with not being able to tell the difference between AI and human-made music.

“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human-made tracks or not,” said the company’s boss Alexis Lanternier.

“There’s also no doubt that there are concerns about how AI-generated music will affect the livelihood of artists.”

Earlier this year, more than 1,000 musicians – including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Kate Bush – released a silent album to protest plans by the UK government to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.

A recent study commissioned by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers suggested that generative AI music could be worth £146bn a year in 2028 and account for around 60% of music libraries’ revenues.

By this metric, the authors concluded, 25% of creators’ revenues are at risk by 2028, a sum of £3.5bn.

A top adviser to the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, has said US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s remarks on halting weapons supplies “jeopardise ceasefire efforts”.

In his remarks yesterday, Mr Rubio called for international powers to stop sending military support to the RSF, the paramilitary group which has been at war with the Sudanese Army since 2023.

“This needs to stop. They’re clearly receiving assistance from outside,” Mr Rubio said.

In a statement on X, Elbasha Tibeig, adviser to RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, dismissed Mr Rubio’s comments as “an unsuccessful step” that does not serve global efforts aimed at reaching a humanitarian ceasefire.

Mr Tibeig said Mr Rubio’s comments may lead to an escalation of the fighting.

The US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – known as the Quad – have been working on ways to end the war.

The war began in April 2023 after the Sudanese army and RSF, then partners, clashed over plans to integrate.

Last week, the RSF said they had agreed to a US-led proposal for a humanitarian ceasefire. Mr Rubio doesn’t believe the RSF intends to comply with that agreement.

“The RSF has concluded that they’re winning and they want to keep going,” he said yesterday.

He added that they’re “not just fighting a war, which war alone is bad enough. They’re committing acts of sexual violence and atrocities, just horrifying atrocities, against women, children, innocent civilians of the most horrific kind. And it needs to end immediately”.

The war has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organisation, and displaced millions more. Aid groups say that the true death toll could be much higher.

The RSF is accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity across Sudan since the war started. Most recently, there were reports of mass killings during the fall of Al Fashir, a city which was recently captured by the RSF.

A Sky News investigation into events in Al Fashir found thousands were targeted in ‘killing fields’ around the Sudanese city.

Marco Rubio did not specify which countries he was referring to in his calls to halt arms supplies, but US intelligence assessments have found that the United Arab Emirates, a close US ally, has been supplying weapons.

Previous reporting on Sky News has supported allegations that the UAE militarily supports the RSF, though the country officially denies it.

“I can just tell you, at the highest levels of our government, that case is being made and that pressure is being applied to the relevant parties,” Mr Rubio said.

The wife of British journalist Sami Hamdi, who was held for more than a fortnight by US immigration, has issued a stark warning to football fans travelling to the 2026 World Cup about the risk of being detained.

Mr Hamdi, who returned to the UK on Thursday, was initially detained at San Francisco International Airport on 26 October.

US officials revoked his visa without warning while on a speaking tour, during which he criticised Israel’s actions in Gaza.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the tour was cancelled due to security rules and that he was in the country illegally.

Sitting alongside him in an interview for Sky’s The World With Yalda Hakim, Soumaya Hamdi explained her concerns about British people travelling to the US.

“I would say to British citizens who value their freedom of speech to be very careful, because you got the World Cup in the United States coming up next year.

“If this could happen to Sami on a valid visa, a British citizen, a registered journalist, then it could very well happen again.”

Ms Hamdi added she was not happy about how the UK government had handled their case.

“The assistance that we received from the British government… was really very disappointing.

“I think this is really very concerning that the government is not taking more serious action with regards to our closest ally.”

Speaking about his arrest, Mr Hamdi said it had been “quite an aggressive experience”.

“They escorted me outside of the airport, there was this black car, the kind of things you see in the movies,” he said.

“When I asked them ‘Can I call my family to let them know I’m OK?’, a lady from behind grabs me, pushes me on the car, and says, ‘All right, that’s enough. You’re under arrest’.”

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He added that, while in detention, he felt there was an attempt to wear him down by restricting access to justice.

“You felt, like, with ICE, it’s a battle of wills. Based on the merits of the case, they can’t actually win, but what they do is they keep delaying you and delaying until you’re just desperate to go home.”

Mr Hamdi, who is Muslim and lives in London, insisted he had complied with all visa conditions and alleged the move was linked to his advocacy for Gaza.

According to Mr Hamdi’s legal team, he accepted an offer to leave the US voluntarily after being charged with visa overstay.

His family announced on Monday the US government had agreed to free him and confirmed on Thursday morning he was on a flight home.

Discussing his treatment while in detention, Mr Hamdi said he noticed a distinct change when news outlets like Sky News became aware of his case.

“They throw you in a cell, you sleep in the foot cuffs. They kept me there with 24 hours until my legs were swollen. When I told the guards, ‘Look, my legs are swollen, visibly swollen’, the guards simply ignored it.

“They only started treating me better when everybody at Sky News and the other media started raising their voices.”

The Trump administration has pursued a sweeping immigration crackdown this year, revoking visas for people accused of supporting terrorism and deporting foreign nationals who have voiced support for Palestinians.

After Mr Hamdi’s arrest, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Homeland Security said his visa had been revoked as “those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country”.

But he told Sky News he strongly disputed the reason for his detention. “On the charge sheet… there was no mention of anything related to terrorism or anything related to what they were saying online,” he said.

“They knew no evidence existed of any of the accusations they were making. And in the end, the deal was about face-saving. I was happy to go home.

“Of course, they get to say that Sami Hamdi ended up leaving America, the case gets closed, and it worked out for both of us.”