How does Spotify’s “play hits from outside the list” spread AI music?

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Spotify’s “play hits from outside the list” can surface AI music through playlist-adjacent recommendations that bring in tracks not originally added by the listener.

In practice, when a user creates or listens to a playlist in Spotify, there is an option that allows the app to play “hits” from outside the list. The columnist describes that, “before I knew it,” AI-generated songs began appearing in their listening flow after enabling that option, including tracks by the artists Room and Harusoupe while walking and on the LRT. The piece does not explain the exact internal mechanism for how Spotify decides what “hits” to play or how it determines that a track is AI-generated.
The “outside the list” switch changes what can play during playlist listening
The option is presented at the time of creating or listening to a playlist, and it permits Spotify to play “hits” beyond the songs contained in that playlist. The columnist’s experience is framed as a sudden shift: they were listening to a regular evening walk playlist, then songs by Room started playing, followed days later by Harusoupe tracks including “Midnight By The Shore” and “Almost Told You Tonight.” The article attributes the timing of these additions to that setting, using the phrase “before I knew it” to describe the point when AI songs surfaced.
Recommendations can introduce new artists and tracks in listening contexts like trains and walks
The columnist’s examples show AI-leaning tracks arriving during specific real-world listening moments, such as while on an LRT train-car. They then took additional steps by going to the artist page in Spotify and browsing more music, which led them to “Almost Told You Tonight” after already hearing “Midnight By The Shore.” This sequence illustrates how recommendation-driven playback can lead a listener from a spontaneous “hit” into further discovery, even when the original playlist did not include those songs.
AI music can be present as normal tracks, making it eligible for recommendation systems
The article’s core claim is that the songs they encountered were likely AI-generated, supported by the near absence of information in Spotify’s “About This Artist” section and by the columnist’s checks using Grok and AI prompts. It also notes that forum discussions on platforms like Reddit and YouTube convinced many people that the music was AI-generated, while also stating it is “hard to be 100 per cent certain” whether a piece of music is AI-generated. In other words, once AI music is uploaded and appears as tracks/artists on the platform, it can be treated like any other catalogue item for discovery and playback pathways.
Spotify also removes large volumes of “spammy” tracks, but discovery still reaches individual listeners
The piece points to platform enforcement at scale, stating that Spotify removed over 75 million “spammy” tracks in the 12 months leading up to September 2025, with many described as AI-related spam such as short clips for royalty farming or impersonations. It also cites figures from elsewhere about AI music being uploaded and generated at very high daily volumes, including Deezer’s reported counts and AI tools like Suno generating millions of songs daily. Against that backdrop, the columnist’s experience suggests that even with large-scale removal of spammy content, some AI-related tracks can still appear in personal listening sessions via recommendation-like “hits” playback.

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How does Spotify’s “play hits from outside the list” spread AI music?

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