The new Spotify feature “DJ” offers personalised music and AI-powered commentary

In front of Spotify’s impending Stream On occasion, where the organization is supposed to declare an overhauled home feed and different updates, the organization today sent off another computer based intelligence highlight called “DJ” to all the more likely customize the music listening experience for its clients. Using what Spotify describes as a “stunningly realistic voice,” Spotify’s DJ feature will deliver a curated selection of music alongside AI-powered spoken commentary about the tracks and artists you like, similar to a radio DJ.

The company explains that the goal is for Spotify to become so familiar with its users that the DJ will be able to choose what to play when you press a button. Or, according to Spotify, it is putting an “AI DJ in your pocket.”

In a broader sense, the feature has the potential to make Spotify a more laid-back, passive experience for users who don’t want to tell it what to stream next or how to find a playlist they like.

As of today’s launch, the OpenAI-powered feature is still in beta testing and only available in English to Spotify Premium subscribers in the United States and Canada.

With its personalization technology, Spotify has dominated the market for a number of years. In 2015, the company debuted its most popular playlist, Discover Weekly, which saw immediate success. The Release Radar, Daily Mixes, Your Time Capsule, and Blend playlists, as well as those geared toward particular activities such as working out or commuting, followed shortly after. These playlists were created to meet the specific preferences of the end user. With its personalized annual review, Spotify Wrapped, which has since been copied by rivals, Spotify has also become a trendsetter in recent years.

It was only a matter of time before Spotify introduced its own take on how modern AI could be used to enhance its personalization experience. The technology market as a whole is currently focusing on novel approaches to leveraging AI advancements.

In this instance, the company claims that its new DJ feature is a blend of its existing personalization technology, an AI voice from its acquisition of Sonantic in 2022, and Generative AI made possible by OpenAI technology. OpenAI has a business relationship with Spotify, but Spotify did not call OpenAI a partner.)

Instead, Spotify claims that OpenAI’s Generative AI technology was made available to its music editors, experts, scriptwriters, and data curators so that they could scale their insights about music, artists, and genres. The innovation is being put to use to make “culturally relevant, accurate pieces of commentary at scale,” the organization says. ( Given the recent AI failures of Bing and Google, accuracy may be a key word here. The success or failure of Spotify’s use case will be determined over time.)

A customized playlist of songs will be presented to listeners as they interact with the brand-new DJ feature, which will include both recent releases and old favorites. We are aware that this stream will be continuously updated. They will also hear commentary that is immediately followed by the song it is referring to as they listen.

The AI may, for instance, provide commentary such as:

“This week, Chicago rapper Polo G teams up with Atlanta’s Future for his first release of the year. This also marks the pair’s first collaboration, but they’re united by production from Southside, who has worked extensively with both and is said to be responsible for most of the music on Polo’s upcoming project.”

The user will be able to simply tap the DJ button once more to switch to a different genre, artist, or mood if the DJ misses what the user wants to hear. The more the element is utilized, the more exact its ideas will become — like how tune skips or loving a track would somehow illuminate a calculation regarding your inclinations.

In contrast, the DJ’s voice is based on Xavier “X” Jernigan, Head of Cultural Partnerships at Spotify, who previously hosted Spotify’s morning show podcast, “The Get Up.” The fact that the DJ feature uses his voice as its “first model” hints at the company’s future plans to include more voices.

To begin using the DJ, navigate to the Music Feed section of the Spotify iOS or Android app’s Home page and tap Play on the DJ card. After that, a playlist of music and brief commentary will be played by the DJ.

In a nutshell trial of the element in front of the send off, we can affirm the voice sounded genuine even as it embedded the customized content during its presentation, similar to references to the names of groups you routinely stream. However, in terms of music selection, it did not immediately appear to be more remarkable than one of Spotify’s personalized playlists. However, in principle, DJ’s enhancements will come in time.

The DJ then switched to playing songs you had streamed in the previous year after tapping through a few of the initial suggestions. This separation surprised us because we had anticipated that the older songs would be mixed in with the flashbacks. The DJ then switched genres after we tapped through the recommendations once more. It switched back to summer flashbacks once more. In a way, it was like switching playlists.

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

We haven’t had time to test the feature, give any advice on how to use it, or see how the DJ changes its suggestions over time.

As AI developments such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard are increasing awareness of both the promise and the dangers of AI advancements, Spotify’s marketing of the feature as an AI-powered addition aims to pique consumer interest in its streaming service.

However, Spotify’s investments in other audio formats have been criticized for making its app cluttered and harder to use for streaming music, and the new feature comes at a time when this criticism is growing. However, the streamer’s shares rose last month on the news that it had experienced solid user growth in the fourth quarter, with the addition of 10 million new subscribers, bringing the total number of subscribers to 205 million, and 22 million more ad-supported users, bringing the total number of users to 295 million.

However, given that Spotify’s early efforts in personalization technology are now considered standard practice for all music services, it is evident that the company wanted to raise the bar even further by experimenting with AI in a novel way that is more difficult to replicate.

The DJ feature will begin to roll out today in supported markets, according to the company, so you may not see it right away but should soon.