Spotify is taking another step to incorporate AI technology into its listening experience, with Tuesday’s news that premium users will be able to have interactive conversations with the app to select the music and other audio they want to listen to.
This feature is initially available in English on iOS and Android devices in the US, Ireland, and Sweden for users 18 and older. Spotify says it’s considered a beta release and won’t always work perfectly, but user feedback will help it improve the product.
While the company didn’t explicitly reveal details about the AI technology under the hood in its announcement, Spotify confirmed to TechCrunch that it uses a mix of its own AI technology and models from multiple providers, based on what’s best for the task.
The addition is the latest example of Spotify leveraging AI technology to help users interact with the app’s extensive catalog of music, podcasts, and audiobooks. The company also offers tools such as an AI DJ that speaks with AI voices that you can interact with directly. We also offer AI features for creating playlists with prompts and for connecting Spotify with third-party AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
This new feature extends chat functionality with Spotify beyond the AI DJ experience, allowing users to converse with Spotify across the app’s Home and Now Playing views on mobile devices. Users can type or speak into the app to have conversations and choose what to play next. Additionally, Spotify says the app will also be able to chat with users about their listening history, allowing them to learn more about their favorite music and dig deeper into podcasts and audiobooks.
This means you can ask questions like what inspired a particular song or the release date of an album, and get suggestions of other artists you might like based on the song you’re playing. You can also ask questions about your own listening history, such as when was the first time you played a particular song, and learn more about what genres you’ve been streaming lately.
In its announcement about the new feature, Spotify also offers some suggestions for how to use this interactive technology. For example, you can ask Spotify to “play some artists you’ve never heard of before,” and then continue to shape that selection with follow-ups, such as asking it to add specific artists by name or narrowing the selection to only more recent tracks. You can also make your request more specific by asking for “more positivity” or giving other instructions.
Additionally, you can use new features to save songs to Spotify, add songs to your queue, follow artists, and more.
This feature is currently being rolled out to the mobile device market.
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