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Afro-Chilean artist Nekki has been spreading her anti-racist message through her reggae-rap lyrics for years, but recently, she feels like she is being blocked from reaching a wider audience. 

She blames artificial intelligence.  

Music streaming platforms have become so crowded with bot-built beats that it’s becoming harder for humans to stand out, she said, leaving artists fewer listeners and less money.

Nekki, a musician from Chile, has been struggling to compete with AI-generated music on streaming platforms. Andie Borie

“It’s a new form of danger disguised as technological innovation,” she told Rest of World.  

Breaking through the noise to find an audience has always been tough in music, but AI is now making it nearly impossible, musicians in Latin America say.

AI-generated tunes are crowding streaming platforms, and they don’t discriminate — there is AI-generated music for all genres of Latin music, including bachata, merengue, and dembow. The music isn’t great, but it still sucks away limited streaming income from real artists. 

The speed and volume of new AI music is now exhausting human artists and distracting listeners, said people in the Latin music industry. 

Even reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny has had to fight back AI-generated music. Someone cloned his voice to create a song that reached  a top 100 ranking temporarily on Spotify in Chile before it was removed from the platform.

Excerpt of an original track by Tito Molina 👁️ featuring AI-generated vocals in the style of Bad Bunny. (License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Musicians are struggling to be heard above the growing cacophony of AI-generated songs on Spotify, Deezer, and YouTube Music. The platforms are weeding out certain AI content, but at the same time, they are promoting other types of AI. 

Spotify, for example, offers a Spanish-speaking AI DJ that provides users with a personalized stream featuring commentary.

For the individuals programming pure AI music, it is a quantity rather than a quality game. They’re trying anything to see if it will get enough listens to generate a few pesos. The AI tunes don’t have to go viral to be profitable, as they cost next to nothing to produce. 

AI music producers don’t care about music or culture, said Mark Meyer, founder of Paraguayan aggregator Random Sounds — a company that has distributed human-made music to streaming platforms for 11 years.

“Most people generating AI music aren’t musicians,” he told Rest of World. “They’re people who want to do business on the internet.”

From Mexico to Argentina, independent musicians no longer just compete against mainstream artists with big platforms, marketing teams, and millions of streams, like Karol G or Shakira. Now they must also compete with AI-generated music that is produced in minutes — not months, like theirs.

18%

The share of uploads to Deezer in April that were AI-generated.

A study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers projects this will worsen, with AI-powered generative music accounting for approximately 20% of music streaming platform revenue by 2028.

Approximately 100,000 tracks are uploaded to Deezer daily. In January, the company detected that around 10% of the content was generated by AI, and by April, the percentage had increased to 18%. 

“We are seeing this trend continue to increase,” Aurélien Hérault, chief innovation officer at Deezer, told Rest of World. 

Paraguayan musician Sari Carri believes AI could jeopardize her chances of becoming a pop star. Her laid-back vocals over tracks that blend indie and electronica with Latin rhythms have a niche following in her hometown of Asunción but have yet to gain traction on streaming platforms. 

She just finished a new single and loved wrapping up the creative process — writing, rewriting, recording, listening. However, the artist dreads the exhausting task of getting her music heard. 

Sari Carri, a musician from Paraguay, believes AI will limit her chances of becoming a pop star. Leonor Blas for Rest of World

Creating new music is the fun part; now she has to keep it alive. 

“What wears me out most is trying to make sure the life of those singles doesn’t end in a month and doesn’t get forgotten in two weeks,” she said. “Instead of using my creativity in producing songs, I’m using it to make reels launch campaigns before, during, and after, so they won’t be forgotten.”

Like many independent artists, Carri invests hundreds of dollars and weeks of effort into each single. Her returns from streaming platforms are just pennies on the dollar. In five years on Spotify, she has earned around $100.

Her AI competitors can make music with simple subscriptions to tools like Suno or Udio. 

Meanwhile, the AI has often been trained on music others have produced. The U.S. music industry sued both AI music companies for training their models on copyrighted works without permission. 

Carri said the amount of time her new songs get attention has been shrinking in recent months as the number of AI songs has surged.

Even as she works harder and spends more to promote her work, listeners are moving on sooner, she said. Listeners used to enjoy her songs for months. Today, they stop clicking on her latest songs within weeks. 

“Songs’ lifespans are shorter, and information is retained less and less,” she said. “Competing against that is costing me a lot. I have to constantly remind people that I’m doing something so my listener numbers don’t drop.”

Artists across the region face the same struggle. 

Claudia Lizardo, a Venezuelan pop and folk artist based in Mexico, describes the pressure: “You have to have presence and sustain it so you don’t expire,” she told Rest of World. “That’s work.”

Sara Curruchich, a Maya artist from Guatemala who sings in Kaqchikel, thinks AI makes it more difficult to discover unique songs amid the surge in the volume of new songs.

“Wonderful musical projects become invisible,” she said. 

Heartgaze, an Argentine artist and producer of urban music, said it’s getting tougher to stand out amid all the AI noise.  

“It took me 10 years to be able to make a living from music,” he told Rest of World. “Now we also have to compete with music created like this.”

Paraguayan aggregator founder Meyer said streaming artists just aren’t making money as much as they used to. “If there are royalties from bots or AI music, they’re stealing from everyone else.” 

Streaming platforms, artists, and their managers are adjusting. 

Deezer has developed AI content detection tools and systems, excluding some AI-generated music from editorial and algorithmic recommendations. Spotify is part of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance, an industry initiative aimed at combating streaming fraud. Meyer said his aggregator Random Sounds also hires staff to listen to all the songs he uploads to streaming platforms. 

Still, experts say human tools and hearing aren’t sophisticated enough to catch all the AI.

Artists are fighting back. 

Carri has earned around $100 from Spotify over the past five years. Leonor Blas for Rest of World

Artists were already adapting to streaming platform algorithms before AI became a major concern. A 2024 study by sociologist Arturo Arriagada of independent musicians in Chile revealed that around 67% of artists have changed their publishing habits for Spotify, adjusting song durations, collaborating strategically, and creating content for social media. They’re also taking on curatorial roles themselves, creating regional and collaborative playlists to gain visibility. 

Musicians are putting out single songs every four to six weeks instead of full albums. A growing number are giving up on ever making money from their music online. Some are focusing on live performances as well as old-school vinyl albums and cassettes. 

Several collective management associations in Latin America are advocating for the regulation of AI in the creative industry. 

“Artificial intelligence is trained with our work, with existing musical and vocal arrangements, without our authorization and without paying us,” said Alberto Laínez, a Honduran singer-songwriter who creates music about environmental conservation and Indigenous communities. 

But leaving streaming platforms doesn’t feel like a real option for most artists. Streaming numbers have become a metric for accessing markets, venues, and even public funding in several Latin American countries.

Many musicians are utilizing AI tools for administrative tasks and to enhance their online presence. 

Carri said she uses artificial intelligence for planning posts or for developing communication ideas. She also has a side hustle: teaching. She won’t let the bots touch her beats, though. 

“It’s a tool that shouldn’t be allowed to influence one’s art,” she said. 

Nekki is embracing small performances and interacting directly with her fans. 

“AI can make music very similar to mine, but it will never capture the experience, the tenderness, and the context behind it,” she said.