A year ago, we shared our plans to protect artists and listeners from spam, impersonation, and deception in the age of AI. One idea has guided those plans: human artistry comes first. Since then, our teams have been working hard to make that real. We looked closely at the tracks listeners were skipping, ignoring, or telling us they didn't want to hear. We’ve made numerous updates to our recommendation system to remove slop and spam, and ensure we’re highlighting music made by authentic, human artists. This year alone, we’ve taken 50M+ slop and spam tracks out of recommendations. That work builds on the tools we’ve launched over the past year, including Verified by Spotify, AI Persona badges, AI Credits, and Artist Profile Protection, to give artists more control and listeners more context. Artists should be able to trust that their name and their work are theirs. Listeners should be able to trust what they’re hearing. There’s more to do, but today we’re recapping the progress we’ve made keeping Spotify a trusted place for artists and listeners.

Really excited to finally announce this one. Today, we're introducing a new era of Fresh Finds. Fresh Finds Forward is Spotify's global program giving ~10,000 emerging independent artists each year the resources, community, and support to turn early momentum into long-term growth. Fresh Finds launched in 2015 to surface emerging independent artists. Over the past decade, the playlists have featured more than 80,000 artists from 127+ countries and served as an early launchpad for names like Laufey, Lil Tecca, Remi Wolf, Ella Langley, sombr, and so many more. Really proud of what this next chapter looks like. A lot more to come.

We announced Reserved by Spotify today. I have wanted to crack this one for years! You know the feeling. 10am, you're glued to your phone, ready to buy tickets, and somehow you're already behind 10,000 people in the queue. It can feel like the fans who care the most end up missing out.

Authenticity means something different in 2026. We increasingly hear from fans that they want more confidence in trusting what they find on Spotify. They want to know whether they're discovering an artist pursuing music as a career, playing gigs, connecting with fans — or whether it's a persona, a content farm, or some kind of spam. We have shipped (and continue to build) systems to catch suspicious activity and fight deceptive behavior. But positively verifying what IS authentic also has an important role to play. So today we're starting to roll out something new: a Verified by Spotify badge. When fans see the badge, they'll know the Spotify team has reviewed the artist to confirm sustained active fan interest, compliance with platform rules, and an authentic profile (the artist is who they claim to be). This is a manual process, so we are starting by reviewing hundreds of thousands of artists that represent over 99% of what listeners search for, and will expand to review more artists over time.