I dumped Spotify a few years back and still firmly believe Apple Music best fits my taste for DJ mixes. This new Spotify feature, Prompted Playlists, at least sounds intriguing.
Imagine a Spotify that doesn’t just passively learn from you but literally listens to you. One you can steer and shape with your own words. For the first time, your ideas, your logic, and your creativity can actually power the Spotify algorithm, directing how it thinks, adapts, and responds to you.
Introducing Prompted Playlist, where your words bring your playlist to life
Starting December 11, Premium listeners in New Zealand will get early access to our latest beta feature: Prompted Playlist. It’s the first feature that puts control of the algorithm and the broader Spotify experience directly in your hands.
Prompted Playlists let you describe exactly what you want to hear and set the rules for your personalized playlist. And unlike anything before it, this feature taps into your entire Spotify listening history, all the way back to day one. Each playlist reflects not only what you love today, but the full arc of your taste. Spotify then curates and keeps it fresh based on your listening patterns and world knowledge.
It seems slightly odd that the press release doesn’t explicitly mention “artificial intelligence.” It would be hard to believe there isn’t some of it under the covers. But maybe that’s deft expectations management. Carefully avoiding promises of ChatGPT-like affordances is a good idea.
This also augurs battles between existing online services and major AI platforms with prominent UIs: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc. In principle, the AI platforms can add features like Prompted Playlists. In practice, they would have to fully take on the incumbent to match its established advantage. Spotify has years of insight, knowledge, technology, and lock-in related to playlists. It’s hard to see an AI platform being as effective or convenient without that head start.
Do AI features trend toward being invisible in successful products, with only one or two viable “omni-knowledge” platforms?
If users enthusiastically adopt Prompted Playlists, what other playlist types (e.g., RSS and podcast subscriptions, social media follow bundles, streaming video catalog dives) are amenable to this approach? Might be fun to cook up a few prototypes for reps and exploration.
Can’t wait for Apple Music to match!
Built using