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.

The BBC has apologised to Donald Trump over the editing of a speech in a Panorama programme in 2024.

The corporation said it was an “error of judgement” and the programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.

But it added that it “strongly” disagrees that there is “a basis for a defamation claim”.

It emerged earlier, Donald Trump’s legal team said the US president had not yet filed a lawsuit against the BBC over the
broadcaster’s editing of a speech he made in 2021 on the day his supporters overran the Capitol building.

The legal team sent a letter over the weekend threatening to sue the media giant for $1bn and issuing three demands:

• Issue a “full and fair retraction” of the Panorama programme
• Apologise immediately
• “Appropriately compensate” the US president

On Sunday evening, two of the BBC’s top figures, including the director-general, resigned amid the edit and concerns about impartiality.

In a statement, the corporation said: “Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday.

“BBC Chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the Corporation are sorry for the edit of the President’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme.

“The BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’ on any BBC platforms.

“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”

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Saturday Night Live UK has announced its top creative team ahead of the series launching next year.

An American pop culture institution, SNL launched the careers of stars including Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell – and now a “new generation” of British comedians is set to be cast in the first UK spin-off on Sky.

While the show’s stars are yet to be revealed, details of the creative team behind it have now been announced.

Two-time Emmy winner James Longman will serve as lead producer, BAFTA winner and live broadcast specialist Liz Clare will direct the series, while writer, comedian and composer Daran Jonno Johnson takes on the role of head writer.

Longman’s credits include The Late Late Show With James Corden, for which he produced famous sketches with stars and notable figures including Sir Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and then president Joe Biden.

He also worked on the Friends reunion special in 2021 and hit UK shows such as Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, The F Word and The Friday Night Project.

Clare’s directing credits include An Audience With Adele, The Brits and MTV awards ceremonies, Glastonbury, the BAFTAs and shows such as The Voice UK and Britain’s Got Talent, while Johnson, who is part of the acclaimed sketch group SHEEPS, has written for shows including Wedding Season for Disney+, Siblings for the BBC and Rose d’Or winner Parlement for France.TV.

Saturday Night Live UK marks the first time the US producers have adapted the show, which celebrated 50 years on air earlier this year, for a British audience.

Channel 4 ran several series of a similar programme on Saturday and Friday nights in the 1980s, featuring comedians like Ben Elton and Harry Enfield, but it was domestically produced.

‘A lot of big US comedy is stolen from the UK’

Comedian Pete Davidson, another SNL star, told Sky News he’s excited about the UK version – and that it is about time the UK is able to take from US comedy, rather than the other way round.

Speaking in the summer during promotion for The Pickup, Davidson said: “I think it’s a smart idea to have SNL over there because… not that it’s a different brand of comedy, but it is a little bit.

“A lot of the biggest stuff that’s in the States is stuff that we stole from you guys, like The Office or literally anything Ricky Gervais does… there’s just tonnes of great comedy over there. Jimmy Carr is a great stand-up.”

Also highlighting Jack Whitehall, he continued: “I think anything that’s great over there, we just kind of steal… and it doesn’t seem like the other way around. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything American going to the UK, so I think it’s great.”

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Producers say the UK series will follow the same format as the original, featuring “a new generation of comedy players in the core cast, alongside guest hosts and musical performances”.

The UK show will be overseen by US producer Lorne Michaels. Along with his production company Broadway Video, which has made The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and 30 Rock, the show will be led by UK production team Universal Television Alternative Studio.

Saturday Night Live UK will be broadcast on Sky Max and streaming service NOW in 2026.