Australia became the first major English-speaking music market to formally ban wholly AI-generated songs from its official charts, with the Australian Recording Industry Association announcing the change takes effect this Friday.
The new rules come from an update to the ARIA Charts' code of practice, according to Variety. Under the revised guidelines, music produced with generative AI can only appear on the charts if it was "substantially human made" and "raises no stream or chart manipulation concerns." Songs where AI was used as a tool will remain eligible.
The move was triggered in part by a cover of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" that charted for weeks across several ARIA charts, reaching No. 4 on its Top 20 Australian Singles chart. That incident exposed a gap in the existing rules and pushed the organization to act.
ARIA CEO Annaelle Herd addressed the change directly. "These changes reflect our intent to remain dynamic and promote the human nature of artistry in what is – to say the least – a rapidly developing space," she said in a statement. "Artists already use AI tools in their work, the Charts can and should evolve to keep room for that, but music generated wholesale by services built on artists' recordings is a different matter."
Herd added: "The ARIA Charts will always remain a transparent measurement of the music Australia consumes, but a chart that rewards unlicensed AI output would undercut the very basis of the recorded music we exist to represent."
To enforce the distinction between AI-generated and AI-assisted music, ARIA will now require the labeling system suggested last month by a coalition of global music industry groups. That coalition includes the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the recording industry worldwide, and the Recording Industry Association of America.
The IFPI had already issued its own guidance last month covering how AI-generated music can appear on charts it manages across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. That guidance required music to be mostly human-made, free of stream or chart manipulation concerns, and created using an AI service that was "properly authorised and lawful."
Australia's action mirrors pressure building in the United States as well. A group of the country's top record labels, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music, demanded a similar framework last month. The labels called for "a clear boundary between human-led creativity and works that are purely synthetic or generated by unauthorized AI models."
AI-generated music has already appeared across several Billboard charts in the U.S., including the Hot Gospel Songs chart and the Hot R&B Charts, without any formal restrictions in place.
ARIA's ban on wholly AI-generated tracks also extends to awards eligibility, barring such music from the ARIA Music Awards. The organization said the charts update reflects the broader music industry's complicated relationship with generative AI platforms such as Suno and Udio, as record labels continue to choose between lawsuits and licensing deals, and streaming services remain divided on how to handle AI content.
