An artificial intelligence-created country song, “Walk My Walk” by the act Breaking Rust, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart last week, amassing over 3 million Spotify streams in under a month and becoming the first fully AI-generated track to hit the top spot in the genre.
The milestone has intensified an ongoing debate in the music industry—especially in country music—over AI’s threat to artistic authenticity, creators’ livelihoods, and the ability to distinguish human from machine-made art.
A Deezer survey released this week found that 97% of listeners cannot tell the difference between AI-generated music and tracks made by human artists, leaving most respondents uncomfortable and nearly two-thirds worried about a potential loss of creativity in the industry.
Country music experts say the genre’s emphasis on authentic storytelling makes it particularly resistant to AI. “Country music has really prided itself on the authenticity in songwriting and in music… asking country fans and artists to accept AI is a big pill to swallow for a lot of people,” Aaron Ryan, editor at Whiskey Riff, told NPR.
Ryan noted that even country legend Randy Travis’s use of AI to recreate his voice after a 2013 stroke sparked backlash from purists. He also highlighted transparency issues: many AI tracks, including “Walk My Walk,” lead to dead ends when trying to identify real human creators behind pseudonyms like “Defbeatsai.”
Billboard confirmed Breaking Rust is an AI act and said at least six AI artists have charted in recent months. Entertainment journalist Kelley L. Carter told ABC News the trend feels like “an experiment to see how far something like this can go,” warning that AI artists don’t require royalties, touring, or other costs human musicians do, which could pressure labels to prioritize cheaper machine-made content.
The controversy follows earlier revelations exposing the AI-generated band The Velvet Sundown, which had attracted over 1 million monthly listeners before being identified as artificial.
As AI music continues gaining traction on charts and streaming platforms, artists and fans are grappling with fundamental questions about creativity, compensation, and what it means to make—and love—country music in the age of algorithms.