“Your subscription goes to the artist you listen to”: Deezer boss explains what it does differently to other streaming platformsAlexis Lanternier, Deezer’s CEO, has shared how the platform acts differently to other streaming competitors to tackle low royalty rates.
Lanternier was appointed CEO of the platform back in July 2024, with a mission to make its royalty system “user-centric”.
Currently, Deezer is a smaller contender in the global market and has nearly 10 million subscribers, with larger competitors like Spotify coming in at 263 million. However, it recorded an 11 per cent growth in its last quarter, and was also the only music streaming brand to add its name to the global statement on AI training back in 2024.

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In an interview with The Guardian, Lanternier says that Deezer is finding better ways to share royalties by fighting back against streaming farms. It does so by identifying “weird behaviour and patterns which don’t make sense” in a track using machine learning.
Lanternier previously spoke on this use of AI detection software back in January, when he released a statement revealing that it had already discovered around 10,000 fully AI-generated songs were being uploaded every day to its platform, amounting to 10 per cent of Deezer’s daily uploads. However, it does not remove the content, but simply labels it.
When questioned if not removing this content makes it harder for actual budding artists to break through, he says, “It’s harder for new artists in general. We now have almost a million songs a week coming, it used to be 150,000 three years ago… It’s harder given the higher competition there is, inherently, in the market.”
Though he declines to give a figure on what Deezer pays out per stream during the interview, he does say that with Deezer, users dictate what is shown to them, and that through its AI technology, it has been able to eradicate a number of white-noise tracks with no instruments in them, and replace them with its own.
By doing this, it provides the background noise some users want, without sharing in the royalty pool. Artists above 1,000 streams a month and more than 500 unique listeners on Deezer are said to receive more, and there are further payments for those actively sought out via search, according to the interview.
“The overwhelming feeling for a lot of people is that their life is more and more dictated by algorithm, and there is this ask that we see from our user base, and especially the young generation, to kind of take back control, understand how the algorithms work and be able to influence it,” he explains. “Your subscription goes to the artist you listen to – nobody can fraud that because you cannot influence the rest of the pool… It’s a long journey, but it’s a journey we’re well into.”
To find out more, head to the Deezer Newsroom.
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