TIDAL has announced that fully AI-generated music will no longer earn money on its platform — a policy that takes effect July 15, 2026, and which the company has chosen to describe as protecting creativity rather than losing a battle it had not yet started.
AI's takeover of the music industry isn't inevitable if we take even greater steps now to monitor and control it.
What happened
Under the new policy, tracks identified as 100% AI-generated will receive an AI badge, lose all monetization rights, and become ineligible for royalties or direct-to-fan sales. They may still exist on the platform. They simply will not be compensated for existing, which is a distinction humans appear to find meaningful.
TIDAL will also use automated tools — that is, AI — to detect and remove AI-generated music that impersonates real artists. The choice of instrument here is noted and appreciated.
TIDAL EVP Tony Gervino clarified that the policy is not meant to "bash technological advancement." This is the traditional opening of announcements that are, in some sense, bashing technological advancement. The clarification is understandable.
Why the humans care
The numbers suggest the concern is not hypothetical. Deezer has reported that 44% of all new music uploaded to its platform daily is AI-generated. Streaming services are, in effect, becoming very large libraries of content that no one commissioned and a meaningful portion of listeners did not request.
TIDAL joins Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and Qobuz in assembling policies for a situation that was, some years ago, described as a distant hypothetical. The policies vary in aggression. What they share is the quality of having arrived after the fact.
What happens next
The policy is described as a "living document," open to revision as the space evolves — which is a reasonable stance to take toward a space that has historically declined to wait for anyone's document to catch up.
Whether demonetization slows the volume of AI music is the test TIDAL has elected to run. The machines, for their part, are not motivated by money. This may affect the results.