Spotify is rolling Prompted Playlists, a new AI-powered playlist creation tool, to Premium subscribers in the US and Canada. The feature, which was first tested in New Zealand, allows users to create a playlist by describing what they want to hear, in their own words.
Prompted Playlists is based on an earlier AI playlist product, launched in 2024, which allowed for simpler prompts like “focus on work with instrumental electronica” or “get pumped up with fun, upbeat and positive songs.”
Instead, the new Prompted Playlists feature lets users explain in more detail and in chat mode what they want to hear.
For example, in a demo to tap, Spotify presented a playlist built after a long prompt that read “Find an artist I haven’t heard yet but would probably like, or an artist I’ve only heard a song or two from and introduce me. Create a playlist of songs that will give me an overview of their catalog. Like most in the top five.”
The idea behind the new feature, he explains JJ ItalianoHead of Global Music Curation and Discovery at Spotify, it’s about empowering anyone to create a playlist, even if they don’t know much about music curation or the right words to use.
“For most people, that’s not part of their job. You don’t always have the time or energy to keep creating the perfect playlist every time your mood changes, and that’s where the requested playlists will appear,” said Italiano, whose team creates popular Spotify playlists like Today’s Top Hits, New Music Friday and Rap Caviar, among others. “This gives listeners access to that creative process without having to know genres, years or industry language. You don’t need the right words. You just need your words.”
“If you can describe a feeling, you can make a playlist,” he added.
The AI behind the feature analyzes the world of music in real time, including “trends, charts, culture and history,” Spotify says, as well as the user’s entire listening history since joining the service.
While playlists are personalized to their creator by default, users can also use the tool to break out of their usual listening habits and get different suggestions. That is, they can specifically say AI not use their own listening history as a reference, or they can direct it to introduce them to songs they’ve never heard before, as in the example above.
Prompts also don’t have to involve musical jargon. For example, users could request a playlist inspired by the weather or a favorite TV show.
Because prompts can be shared, the feature could also lead to a new type of creator — someone who makes AI prompts that others will want to try. While the prompt itself would be the same, each user’s resulting playlist would be different, as it’s personalized to their own tastes and listening history. They could then further modify this playlist if they wished.
Spotify says Prompted Playlists is the “next evolution” of its previous AI playlist feature. The new version is more attuned to real-time music trends and culture, understands the full arc of a user’s listening behavior — not just what they listened to recently — and offers deeper control. However, the older AI playlist mode will not be closed. Instead, the two products will live side by side, which could lead to consumer confusion given the similarities.
The feature will have some usage limits because it is still in beta and these could change over time. It is also only available in English for now.
The company could not say when Prompted Playlists will reach global subscribers, noting that it wants to learn from those initial purchases first to inform future releases.
