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You’ve tried Spotify AI DJ, but did you know that the streaming giant uses AI in heaps of other ways to improve your listening experience? Some work behind the scenes, whereas others are more obvious, but Spotify uses AI to improve your experience.
1Spotify Uses AI for Discover Weekly
Discover Weekly is one of the most popular ways to find amazing new tracks, and Spotify updates your playlist every Monday. But did you know that this all works thanks to the power of AI?
When you listen to music on Spotify, it tracks your favorite genres, artists, and more. Using that information, Spotify uses comprehensive filtering tools—in addition to natural language processing (NLP)—to determine which songs you’d be most interested in listening to.
The result is 30 songs each week delivered to the same playlist. And if you want to change the recommendations you get, consider checking out theseSpotify sites to discover playlists that you’ll like.
2Bringing You a Year of Music Memories With Spotify Wrapped
If you’re anything like us, you’re always excited for the release of Spotify Wrapped at the end of each year.Spotify compiles Spotify Wrapped using databased on how long you listen to songs, and its background algorithms put all of that information into a list that you’re able to enjoy at the end of each year. This data also allows Spotify to compile statistics like your overall listening minutes.
Spotify Wrapped tracks the music you listen to until the end of October each year, and you can access previous years' playlists by searching for “Your Top Songs [Year]” in the search bar. Speaking of which…
3Search More Accurately for Content
If you’ve ever wondered why Spotify’s search engine is so accurate now, AI has a big role. This is another example of the streaming company using NLP to determine what users are looking for, and as a2022 Spotify blog postrevealed, NLP also works when you need to look for podcast episodes.
With NLP, you may now find the content you want without typing specific terms. You can find songs even if you have typos, and you can also search based on lyrics. With both songs and podcasts, you can also use related terms to find the exact thing(s) you want.
To get the most out of your Spotify experience, you might want to check out our guide onhow to use Spotify’s advanced search parameters.
4Understand Text in Different Languages With Spotify Podcast Voice Translation
Spotify has invested significant amounts of time and money into podcasts since 2020, and signing up big-name exclusive shows was one example. To ensure that content is more accessible to everyone, Spotify has also experimented with translating a handful of shows into different languages.
In September 2023,Spotify announcedit tested translating shows from Lex Fridman, the Armchair Expert, and Steven Bartlett. At the time of writing in March 2024, these shows have been translated into Spanish. You can view all translated podcast episodes on Spotify via theVoice Translationsection.
Voice translation is still in its early stages, but Spotify has announced that it hopes to expand the feature to more languages and creators.
5Using AI to Soundtrack Your Day With Daylists
It’s impossible not to find at least one playlist to soundtrack your day on Spotify, and the company has used AI to create the Daylist feature. Spotify’s AI technology determines the genres you normally listen to at different times. For example, I usually listen to Australian indie and alternative music on Wednesday afternoons (according to Spotify, anyway). Based on that, Spotify compiles similar genres.
Your Daylist updates at different times throughout the day, and you’ll see when it’s due to update next at the top of your screen. You’ll find a mixture of songs you’ve already listened to and others you perhaps haven’t heard.
Finding your Daylist can sometimes be quite challenging, but we’ve got a full guide onhow to find your Spotify Daylist. To ensure that you don’t lose the playlist, ensure that you hit the+ iconto save it.
6AI Helps Spotify Flag Offensive Content
While Spotify uses AI to deliver several nice-to-have user experience features, it also performs several essential background functions. Arguably the most important of these is helping Spotify quickly flag and remove offensive content to ensure users remain safe.
In October 2022,Spotify acquiredKinzen, a company that specializes in taking down offensive content. The companies have worked together since 2020, with Spotify using Kinzen’s AI to identify harmful content in multiple languages, making it easier to remove potentially damaging audio swiftly.
If you want to protect yourself (or a loved one) against unsavory lyrics and not just offensive content, you can do several things yourself. For example, you canfilter out explicit lyrics on Spotify.
7Spotify Uses AI to Deliver Home Screen Recommendations
Spotify is excellent at delivering recommendations to each user, and AI plays a significant role. The background algorithms track podcasts and songs you listen to before recommending similar topics so you can instantly access them. You can see this in action via the “Shows you might like” section and “Based on your recent listening.” As reported byReutersin 2023, Spotify also announced that it would use large language models (LLMs) to enhance podcast and audiobook suggestions.
When you expand your recommendations, you can see the full list of playlists and shows that Spotify recommends. To make your experience even more enjoyable on the app, considerchecking out these hidden Spotify features.
8Use AI-Generated Playlists—When They Launch
Although you could already access plenty of personalized playlists before, Spotify is set to introduce a feature that lets users use AI to generate playlists. When you create a new playlist in the app, you can opt to create an AI playlist. You can then insert a prompt (for example: “Create a playlist with fast-paced dance tracks”).
Spotify will then generate your playlist and let you listen through your songs, and delete any that you don’t like. As of March 2024, Spotify’s AI playlist feature isn’t available to most users, though given the above tweet, it’s clear something is in the works, and it’s been spotted in the wild a few times.
Spotify has already used AI to revolutionize the music and podcast streaming industry withSpotify DJand plenty of other innovative features. Some of Spotify’s AI advances (e.g., Daylists and AI-generated playlists) are more evident, whereas others, like flagging offensive content, work in the background. All of this helps Spotify stay ahead of its competitors.
