My New Favorite Artist is… AI?

Like most of the world, Olivia Dean’s newest album had me captivated, and she quickly rose to be my top artist. So when Spotify recommended a new artist with a similar sound, I was eager to listen.

Sienna Rose grew in popularity with her hit single “Into the Blue.” Her music even made its way onto Spotify’s Viral Top 50 of 2025. Rose’s jazz-influenced tone and soft vocals are reminiscent of Dean and other solo female artists like Norah Jones, Erykah Badu, and Alicia Keys.

I didn’t dive deeply into Rose’s discography beyond the few songs Spotify dropped into my recommendations. A brief glimpse at her Spotify page doesn’t reveal anything too suspicious. Her artist profile picture appears clear and professional—nothing too out of the ordinary. Scrolling down, though, you’ll find that she has released two EPs and two albums  within the span of just a year. Only Taylor Swift's re-records can keep up with that pace.

Her Spotify bio claims that “every note she sings carries a sense of truth and beauty, making Sienna Rose not just a performer, but a storyteller of the heart.”

But, funnily enough, not a single live performance of hers can be found through a google search or on Spotify.

A couple of weeks later, an Instagram post popped up on my feed. The post was a deep dive into Rose’s background, finding different appearances in pictures and an almost completely inactive Instagram account. Whether Rose is AI or not has become an internet debate. Most of us, myself included, don’t want to believe that we could be so easily fooled into loving an AI-generated song and artist, but it appears  we may have been bamboozled.

This realization led me down another Internet rabbit hole: how had Rose amassed such a large audience (three million monthly listeners and counting), and what are the ethics of a global media giant like Spotify supporting AI-generated music?

Spotify, as a platform, doesn’t currently label AI-generated music as AI. They have, however, taken down music that uses other artists' voices without their consent. For example, in 2023 Spotify removed a song that featured AI clones of Drake and The Weeknd. However, the line around fully AI-generated music seems blurry. After all, AI draws on material that already exists, so in a way AI will always be a clone. In the case of Sienna Rose, whose music immediately reminded me of some of my favorite artists, you have to wonder how much AI references (or steals from) real-life artists like Dean to model music.

I’ll admit, it must be difficult to regulate. We can’t entirely blame Spotify for platforming AI music, but there is a plethora of modern-day tools that could detect and remove it. As a platform for musicians, does Spotify have a duty to protect real human art by removing AI-generated work? Does AI diminish and discredit the success of up-and-coming artists? And as listeners, how will AI music change the landscape of our playlists and concert scenes?

I’m really not sure. To me, an artist isn’t just their recordings. They are their performances – from costumes to hair and makeup. They’re the values they hold: the causes they support, the groups they represent, and the dreams they fulfill for themselves and their fans. Most of all, artists are their personalities and lived experiences. Music has always been a form of human self expression, something that AI can’t replicate.