Spotify Takes the AI Thing One Step Further — Launches ‘AI Playlist’ Beta in UK & Australia

After dropping an AI DJ to guide playlist choices, now Spotify is experimenting with prompting to create AI playlists in the UK and Australia.

Spotify says creating a playlist based on tastes is now as simple as typing in phrases like “indie folk playlist to give my brain a big warm hug” or “relaxing music to tide me over during allergy season.” The AI Playlist beta is currently only available in the United Kingdom and Australia.

The company says it hopes users will use the prompts feature to reference places, animals, activities, movie characters, colors, and even emojis to create playlists.

“The most successful playlists are generated with prompts that contain a combination of genres, moods, artists, or decades,” Spotify suggests. While the idea of generating playlists based on moods is nothing new—I can’t help but think about the opportunities this presents Spotify for data collection. Prompting LLMs with inherently emotional cues can further help hone Spotify’s psychological profile of each of its listeners.

How to Create an AI Playlist in Spotify — iOS & Android

1. Open your Spotify library and then tap the ‘+’ button at the top-right corner of the app. Select ‘AI Playlist.’
2. Choose a suggested prompt or create one of your own using moods, emojis, places, and more.
3. Wait while Spotify chooses songs based on the vibe.
4. Manage the selection of songs as you would a regularly created playlist.
5. You can revise and refine the playlist by entering new prompts like ‘more pop’ or ‘less upbeat.’
6. Tap ‘Create’ to save the playlist to your Spotify library.

Spotify Premium subscribers in the United Kingdom and Australia can check out this feature right now. Over the coming months, Spotify says it will roll out the feature to other countries—though it doesn’t mention when or which countries are next after the beta phase.

Spotify says the tool won’t produce results for non-music related prompts based on current events or specific brands—a limitation of the large language model used to process prompts.