You may remember a few years ago (about 5 to be exact), someone had the foresight to mock up a Spotify Stems Player, which should have been the future ! (before AI was a thing).. Very surprising that it never saw the light of day..(jk) I tried my best for you guys haha ! That is, or was, until now. Now, you could say things have had.. a remix ! Well, a rework. kinda. No prizes for guessing its an AI rework. And its coming to your favourite green music player very soon.

On May 21, 2026, Spotify dropped the news that they’ve signed a deal with Universal Music Group and probably other major labels (lets be honest, if UMG and Spotify pull this off, they`ll all want in, or the toys will be well and truly thrown out of the pram) because theyre going to let Spotify Premium users create AI remixes and covers directly in their app. Proper official-like, with prompts to turn your favourite track into whatever genre you fancy.. think a David Guetta version of your favourite ballad or whatever twisted vibe your brain comes up with at 4am on a Sunday morning after a night on the sauce.

Artists can opt out if they want, (interesting to see if they do or not), and as recompense the artists who opt in get a cut of the royalties from the said remixes. Your remixes, that is. Ones that you wont be getting the royalties for btw.

It’s coming as a paid add-on on top of the premium sub, and apparently starting with a beta before going full on. No firm date yet, but its on the way ! woooo. Seems that instead of fighting the AI tide, they’re trying to build a nicely licensed infinity pool of stems and HQ masters and will be charging entry. Heard worse ideas tbh.

Will It Actually Be Any Good Though?

Here’s where the conjecture kicks in. On paper it sounds an awesome plan for us remixers.. proper sanctioned stems-on-demand without having to hunt down those dodgy stems websites with badly labelled and incomplete packs to make your remixes from ! Imagine prompting in “make this tune sound like it’s from 2005 with a UK garage sound” and actually getting something usable? Still, for super-fans and bedroom producers it could be, at worst, a laugh.
For the stems crowd, depending on what the source material ends up being (official stems hopefully) it 100% WILL see a fair bit of action.. as well as some action Spotify might not actually be considering just yet. Im sure you know what I mean..

On the upside, this move might even spark some genuine creativity if the quality’s decent. Or, probably, it’ll just flood Spotify with a load of AI slop that makes “real” remixes look even better by comparison.. or maybe not? What if the remixes turn out better than the OG`s ?? Either way, one will be having a little nosey round when it drops.

For the majors like UMG/Warner et al, this could be nice little earner and a possible way to control the AI “wild west” somewhat. Smaller indie artists outside the deal might be sat there a bit miffed though – as per usual. And let’s be honest, if every man and his dog starts pumping out AI versions, does the original track lose a bit of its shine from the off ? Or does it just get more ears on the tune itself that might not have been there at all ? the jury’s out, but we`re all eager to hear the verdict, that`s for sure !

Love it or hate it, we all know AI is the direction of travel one way or another. Music’s going interactive whether we like it or not. Better late than never uh? If Spotify nails the audio quality and keeps it fair on the royalties with access to all thrown in, it could actually be a decent tool for the remix community in general as well as fun for the less committed. If it’s another half-arsed attempt at hyping up the platform with no real substance, well, we’ll all be back here slagging it off and sticking to proper stems and remixes anyways. Either way, 2026 is now shaping up to be a rather interesting year for remixing. Keep your eyes peeled folks for more news, and for now, you will still have to download mostly unofficial stem packs the old-fashioned way, but get yourself ready to prompt like you never have before !

further reading:

Spotify announcement here