It has become nearly impossible for people to tell the difference between music generated by artificial intelligence and that created by humans, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The polling firm Ipsos asked 9,000 people to listen to two clips of AI-generated music and one of human-made music in a survey conducted for France-based streaming platform Deezer.

“Ninety-seven per cent could not distinguish between music entirely generated by AI and human-created music,” said Deezer.

The survey came out as a country music song featuring a male singer’s voice generated by AI reached the top of the US charts for the first time this week.

“Walk My Walk” by Breaking Rust — an artist widely reported by US media to be powered by generative AI technology — made it to the top spot on Billboard magazine’s chart ranking digital sales of country songs, according to data published on Monday.

Deezer said more than half of the respondents to its survey felt uncomfortable at not being able to tell the difference.

Pollsters also asked broader questions about the impact of AI, with 51pc saying the technology would lead to more low-quality music on streaming platforms and almost two-thirds believing it will lead to a loss of creativity.

“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human made tracks or not,” Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said.

One in three streamed tracks AI

Deezer said there has not only been a surge in AI-generated content being uploaded to its platform, but it is finding listeners.

In January, one in 10 of the tracks streamed each day were completely AI-generated. Ten months later, that percentage has climbed to over one in three, or nearly 40,000 per day.

Eighty per cent of survey respondents wanted fully AI-generated music clearly labelled for listeners.

Deezer is the only major music-streaming platform that systematically labels completely AI-generated content for users.

The issue gained prominence in June when a band called The Velvet Sundown suddenly went viral on Spotify, and only confirmed the following month that it was in fact AI-generated content.

The AI group’s most popular song has been streamed more than three million times.

In response, Spotify said it would encourage artists and publishers to sign up to a voluntary industry code to disclose AI use in music production.

The Deezer survey was conducted between October 6 and 10 in eight countries: Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.