Spotify Prompted Playlist Hits the UK, Ireland, Sweden, & Australia

Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify has once again expanded its Prompted Playlist beta, which is now live for Premium users in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, and Australia.

The DSP reached out with word of Prompted Playlist’s enhanced availability today, two months and change after bringing the feature to New Zealand. That limited launch made way for a pilot in the US and Canada before the initially mentioned nations’ subscribers gained access.

In other words, against the backdrop of intensifying music-streaming competition in AI, Spotify is rather aggressively building out Prompted Playlist. As we reported two months ago – and in keeping with its name – the tool enables users to auto-generate playlists with text prompts.

One component of a broader attempt to make playlists as well as radio more personalized (and appealing), Prompted Playlist certainly isn’t the only offering of its kind. Both YouTube Music and Apple Music are also getting in on the AI-playlist action, for instance.

However, a few things stand out about Spotify’s push. First is the above-described quick-moving expansion.

Second, the company is leveraging its vast collection of consumption data by encouraging playlist generation based on listening history as opposed to preferences alone.

Users can, of course, tap the platform to pump out playlists prioritizing genre and “vibe.” But Spotify in disclosing the Prompted Playlist expansion pointed to example prompts involving the first songs one listened to on-platform and seldom-streamed (by the individual user, that is) saved tracks.

Third, the DSP is apparently working to sell Prompted Playlist to on-the-fence users. Hardly light on criticism about the service, r/truespotify last month hosted a Q&A session with VP of personalization Molly Holder.

It’s not every day that Spotify fields questions when pitching a new feature; in announcing the discussion, which coincided with said feature’s North American debut, Holder specifically emphasized plans to “chat all things Prompted Playlist.”

In the end, the Spotify higher-up chatted Prompted Playlist but not all things Prompted Playlist. That’s because it didn’t take very long for many commenters (whose remarks didn’t receive responses) to call out the growing prevalence of AI slop in recommendations and elsewhere.

“If I don’t want to listen to an artist, I have the option to ask Spotify to opt them out a playlist or suggestions,” one Redditor wrote. “I listen to ambient music and my feed is filled with AI generated content. I want to support small artists making real beats. Is there a plan to give users the option to nope out of AI generated content or at least require AI generated content to be labeled?”

“Please, please convince your coworkers and other senior management to label and limit AI songs,” entreated a self-described “Spotify power user” of over a decade. “It’s all I care about. I love the personalized playlists, but I don’t want any AI made songs in them ever. Having to repeatedly block AI artists/songs in my lists is making me use Spotify less than I did before, and less than I want to.”

“Do you know about the AI songs and artists being forced into everyone’s feeds? Why is this being done and will we be able to block AI music from our feed?” inquired a different commenter yet.

You can draw your own conclusions about the episode, from the decision to arrange the Prompted Playlist Q&A itself to the devolution into a no-holds-barred complaint session. But evidence suggests that being first to embrace bolstered AI user controls, not just a pile of content and features, might unlock a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving space.