Spotify’s CEO says he has no plans to completely ban Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated content from the music streaming platform.

Earlier this year, Spotify pulled a song featuring artificially cloned voices by artists Drake and The Weeknd.

Daniel Ek told the BBC that there were valid uses of the technology in music creation – but AI should not be used to imitate human artists without their consent.

He also estimated that the use of Artificial Intelligence in music is likely to be discussed for “many, many years”.

Daniel Eck said that Artificial Intelligence can become an auto-tune tool, an audio editor aimed at improving music, which is acceptable.

It can also, as he pointed out, be a tool for imitating artists, which is not acceptable.

A more controversial middle ground is for AI-generated music to be clearly influenced by artists, but not directly imitate them, he explained.

“It’s going to be tough,” Spotify’s CEO said when asked about the challenge facing the industry.

While AI is not banned in all forms on the platform, the company does not allow its content to be used to train a machine learning or AI model as they can then produce music.