Late last year, we reported on Spotify's plans to build AI into more of its feature – and in particular, what appeared to be an incoming update to create AI-generated playlists. Spotify confirmed at the time that AI playlists were indeed being tested, and now the feature has gone live to all Premium subscribers in the UK and Australia.
The Spotify feature, which is still a beta so may be rough around the edges, enables you to create a playlist by typing in a simple prompt, much like you would on a large language model like ChatGPT. Spotify's example prompts include "an indie folk playlist to give my brain a big warm hug", "relaxing music to tide me over during allergy season" and "a playlist that makes me feel like the main character".
You can create your playlist based on places, activities, animals, movie characters, colors and even emojis, but just don't choose one as Spotify recommends using prompts with multiple criteria – so for example a genre matched with a mood, an artist or an era. If you've used an AI-based image generator you'll feel right at home, although this feature from one of the best music streaming services is much less likely to give your favorite musicians any extra fingers.
How to use AI Playlist in Spotify
One thing Spotify's new AI playlist feature won't do is accept "offensive" prompts, which probably rules out the poop emoji. And it won't let you create playlists based on current news events or that are based on specific brands, presumably for fear of legal action.
To use the feature, open up your mobile Spotify app and go to the Your Library tab. Look for the plus sign at the top right of the screen, tap on it and select AI playlist. If it's not there you'll need to update your Spotify app.
When you tap on the AI playlist option you'll see some pre-defined prompts, which you can choose from or enter your own. Instead of using prompts based around places, animals, activities, movie characters or colors, Spotify recommends using genres, moods or artist prompts to get the best out of the feature.
If the playlist isn't quite what you want, you can refine it with extra prompts, such as "more death metal" or "less upbeat". You can also delete tracks from the playlist if the AI's thrown in a few songs that you don't like.
Once you've done that, all that's left to do is tap on Create to save your new playlist to your library, where it works just like any other.
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