Spotify is aiming to launch its AI-powered covers and remixes tool in the first quarter of 2027, possibly unveiling it around the Grammy Awards in February, according to a Financial Times report published Friday. The FT’s sources said the company is weighing a price of $4 to $5 a month on top of Premium, though neither the timing nor the price is final, and Spotify declined to comment.
The tool lets paying subscribers use AI to rework songs by artists who have opted in, such as turning a folk song into a dance track or imagining a track as if another artist were covering it. Royalties from those fan-made versions go to the artists behind the originals. Spotify is also building a way for remixes to sit in playlists, with their plays credited to the original recordings on Spotify’s charts.
That last detail may be the most consequential. Instead of letting derivative versions compete with their sources for chart position, Spotify is designing the system so fan creativity feeds back into the original track. It’s a structural answer to the flood-of-remixes worry that has followed this product since Universal Music Group signed on in May.
Merlin followed UMG in August, Kobalt shortly after, and Believe signed on October 20 for artists and labels at Believe and TuneCore, using a two-step opt-in that asks artists to approve AI programs generally and then Spotify’s tool specifically. Sony Music and Warner Music are still negotiating. Spotify has said it can launch without them. On the company’s August earnings call, co-CEO Gustav Söderström put it plainly: “So the answer is we do not need a deal with all the majors.”
Winning over individual artists is proving harder at the top. Spotify and Universal have been meeting with acts one by one, and one FT source said today’s biggest stars have been tougher to sign than veteran acts. That fits how Söderström has pitched the product, as a way for artists whose hits are decades old to earn from fan reinterpretations rather than waiting for another artist to cover them. Even with a label deal in place, each artist makes the final call.
The commercial bet is on superfans. Spotify ended the third quarter with 306 million Premium subscribers, and the FT cites Bernstein analyst Ian Moore’s estimate that 7% to 8% of Spotify’s US subscribers could sign up for the tool by the end of 2028.
Spotify is careful to frame this as remixes and covers of existing songs, not Suno-style generation of new ones. Yet Believe now has licensing deals with both, which says something about where the industry is heading: the same catalog feeding two very different models of AI creation. Whether fans will pay an extra $5 a month to remix their favorites is the real test. The consent-and-credit framework, at least, is one of the more careful attempts any major platform has made to let listeners create with AI.