Spotify’s Tests AI-Powered ‘Prompted Playlists’ Grounded in Users’ Listening History

Spotify is launching today a new feature that will let Premium users control their algorithmic recommendations. The company named the new feature “Prompted Playlist”, and it’s launching in beta in New Zealand today.

“Spotify listeners have created nearly 9 billion playlists, which is proof that human curation is still the heartbeat of the platform. But until now, unless you were a developer at Spotify and could write your own playlist algorithm, your best ideas might have stayed in your head. Prompted Playlist brings those ideas to life using just the English language,” the company explained yesterday.

Prompted playlists use data from users’ entire listening history on Spotify, and using the feature is as simple as describing in plain English what you want to hear. The Spotify team shared some examples of very detailed prompts such as ““high-energy pop and hip-hop for a 30-minute 5K run that keeps a steady pace before easing into relaxing songs for a cool-down,” which can be further refined with an option to refresh the playlist daily or weekly.

To help users get started, Spotify will also suggest prompt ideas that will appear on the app’s Home page. “For each song, we’ll include descriptions and context that tell you the story behind the recommendation so the playlist feels alive and crafted specifically for your prompt and your taste,” the team also said.

While Spotify previously launched an AI Playlist feature that lets users create a playlist using a natural language prompt, Prompted Playlists are different as they’re grounded in users’ listening habits. “This is just the beginning of a new phase where listeners take the lead and make even more of every minute,” the company said in the announcement.