New Spotify function "DJ" offers tailored music and AI-powered commentary

The objective is for Spotify to grow to know users so well that the DJ can pick what to play for you when you press the button, according to the firm. Rather, Spotify claims to be placing an "AI DJ in your pocket."

For users who don't feel like telling Spotify what to stream next or stumbling through the UI to discover a playlist they enjoy, the function has the potential to make Spotify into a lean-back, passive experience.

Now only accessible to Spotify Premium customers in the United States and Canada, the OpenAI-powered functionality is still under beta testing as of the time of the debut.

With its customizing technology, Spotify has long been the industry leader. In 2015, it successfully debuted its flagship playlist, Discover Weekly. Next came a variety of alternative playlists made to suit the individual tastes of the end user, such as Release Radar, Daily Mixes, Your Time Capsule, Blend, and others targeted towards certain activities, such as commuting or working out. With the introduction of its customized yearly review, Spotify Wrapped, in more recent years, Spotify has also started trends that its competitors have subsequently copied.

It was only a matter of time until Spotify released its own perspective on how contemporary AI may be utilized to enhance its customization experience, given that the broader technology industry is increasingly focusing on new ways to harness AI advancements.

In this instance, the business claims that its new DJ function is a synthesis of its current personalization technology, an AI voice via its purchase of 2022 Sonantic, and Generative AI through the usage of OpenAI technology. 

Spotify informs that it does business with OpenAI but does not refer to it as a partner.  Instead, Spotify claims it gave access to OpenAI's Generative AI technology to its music editors, specialists, scriptwriters, and data curators in order to expand their knowledge of music, artists, and genres. The technology is being used to produce "culturally relevant, accurate pieces of commentary at scale," the business claims.  With the recent AI failures at Bing and Google, accuracy may be the crucial word here. Whether Spotify's use case encounters comparable difficulties remains to be seen.

The new DJ function will give users a tailored stream of music that will mix both recent releases and time-honored classics as they interact with it. This feed will be continuously updated. They will also hear commentary that is immediately followed by the music it refers to while they listen.

The DJ's voice, meanwhile, is modeled after Xavier "X" Jernigan, Spotify's Director of Cultural Partnerships, who formerly presented the company's morning program podcast "The Get Up." The fact that the business calls his voice the "initial model" for the DJ function suggests that it has intentions to eventually broaden the selection of voices.

On the Home page of the Spotify iOS or Android app, go to the Music Feed, and then hit Play on the DJ card to start listening. The DJ will then start playing a selection of songs and brief remarks.

During quick testing of the functionality prior to launch, the voice did seem real even as it injected tailored material, such allusions to bands you often stream, throughout its introduction. In terms of music selection, it didn't appear to be much more noteworthy than a custom Spotify playlist at first. However, in principle, DJ's enhancements will arrive in time.

The DJ then changed to playing music you have streamed in a previous year after tapping through a number of initial selections. This divide may catch you off guard since the memories can be anticipated with the more recent songs. The DJ then changes genres as you tap through the suggested tracks once again. It almost resembles changing between playlists.

The DJ initially appears as a green circle on a blue background, but as the music is played, it moves to the bottom-right of the Now Playing interface, which otherwise looks the same. There, it plays looping visuals if they are available, offers player controls, and gives you access to the heart button and the lyrics, just like before.

While AI innovations like ChatGPT and Google's Bard raise customer awareness of both the potential benefits and drawbacks of AI research, Spotify is presenting the function as an AI-powered addition in an effort to increase consumer interest in its streaming service.

The addition of the feature coincides with growing complaints that Spotify's efforts in other audio formats have left the service's interface clogged and difficult to use for streaming music. These complaints haven't necessarily hampered the company's growth, though. The streamer's shares surged last month on news of strong user growth in Q4, which saw the addition of 10 million new subscribers, bringing the total to 205 million, and 22 million more ad-supported users, bringing the total to 295 million. 

Yet, given that Spotify's early strides in customization technology now appear to be prerequisites for any music service, it's evident that the company intended to raise the bar even higher by using AI in a novel way that isn't as readily replicable.