First "AI musician" signs record deal. He can't sing

Oliver McCann records under the name imoliver. His story began with frustration. The 37-year-old from the UK works as a visual designer. He has no musical training, does not sing, and does not play any instrument. He turned to song generators to turn his own lyrics into finished tracks: indie pop, country-rap, and electronic music. In August 2025, he signed a deal with independent label Hallwood Media. The Associated Press reported it was the first time the industry had signed a publishing contract with an "artificial musician". McCann makes no secret of the fact that all his work relies on generative tools.

18 percent and silence around the numbers

The scale of the phenomenon is only partly measurable. The French streaming service Deezer reported that 18 percent of the tracks users upload daily are made entirely by a model. It also noted that such songs usually get few plays. Hardly anyone actually listens to them. The biggest platforms, Spotify first among them, refuse to publish any data on the share of AI-generated music in their catalogues. That lack of data is one of the reasons behind disputes over how to split the money.

The three largest labels, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group, had sued the music generation platforms Suno and Udio a year earlier over copyright. In June 2026, the "big three" were in negotiations meant to lead to an agreement on splitting revenue from tracks made with AI. AP assessed that the generative music market was operating in a kind of "legal vacuum" at the time. The labels would sooner or later have to impose their own rules to bring those tracks into circulation.

The label will detect AI in someone else's playlist

Deezer didn't wait for an agreement. In June 2026, it released a free tool that scans playlists on outside platforms, Apple Music, Spotify, and others, to check for AI-generated tracks. The company was one of the first big services to start labelling such songs. It had earlier tried to sell its recognition technology to other platforms, without much response. "No other platform went our way, so we decided everyone should be able to check their own playlist," said Deezer's CEO, Alexis Lanternier. Using the tool is simple. You go to the site, pick the service you use, authorise access to your account, and wait for the analysis. For listeners, it is the first widely available tool that lets them answer for themselves how much of their favourite list was made without a human.