How Spotify Uses Advanced AI Tricks to Enhance User Experience Brilliantly

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• Your Own Personal Radio DJ
• A Playlist That Changes Throughout the Day

We’re at a moment in time when it feels like every app under the sun is integrating “AI.” Most of these features are nothing more than buzzword gimmicks, but Spotify is doing some really cool stuff with AI.

Of course, most things labeled as “AI”—Spotify’s usage included—are not actually AI . It’s usually just some form of machine learning , which has been around for a while (and doesn’t sound as cool). Regardless, Spotify’s features that utilize this technology are genuinely very cool and useful.

Your Own Personal Radio DJ

In February 2023, Spotify launched a feature called “DJ.” It was described as a “personalized AI guide that knows you and your music taste so well that it can choose what to play for you.” Needless to say, I was skeptical, but I gave it a try.

The concept is pretty simple, but it’s executed really well. Imagine there’s a radio station devoted just to you, and a real live DJ cuts in every once in a while to talk to you. That’s pretty much what the DJ feature is like. It’s an actual voice that says your name and talks about the music it’s playing for you.

When you listen to the DJ, the music is broken into segments that last around five songs. Each segment has a different theme. The DJ will play the music you were listening to a few months ago, genres you’re listening to a lot at the moment, music that your friends like, recommendations from Spotify based on your listening habits, and more. You can skip to the next segment at any time by tapping the DJ button.

I really like the DJ because you’re not locked into a specific playlist, album, or artist until you manually make a change. I can just sit back and let the DJ change things up every few songs. It keeps things fresh for long listening sessions.

A Playlist That Changes Throughout the Day

Spotify’s “Daylist” feature was announced in September 2023 . The announcement didn’t specifically mention “AI,” but I imagine it’s using similar technology to figure out what people like. Playlists are Spotify’s bread and butter, and Daylist takes it to the next level.

Daylist is a single playlist that changes throughout the day. It looks different in the morning, afternoon, evening, night, late night, etc. What makes it really fun is how hyper-specific it gets. One morning, I get “70s rock classic thursday morning.” The next day, it’s “teen rock guitar friday morning.” Later in the day, it’s “fresh electropop friday afternoon.”

You can check back multiple times throughout the day for completely different vibes. I have found that it’s almost always an interesting mix of music that piques my interest. More times than not, I’ll give the playlist a shot. When there’s so much music at your fingertips, sometimes it’s nice to have a little direction.

If you find a specific Daylist mix to be particularly good, you can save it to your library to listen again in the future. The Daylist can also be shared on social media, which is a great way to show off your personal music taste. It’s just a fun way to enjoy music.

AI is a very popular thing in the tech world right now. Tools like ChatGPT and Bing Chat have their uses, but a lot of the “AI” tools are empty promises. Whether it’s real AI or not, it’s cool to see Spotify using this technology to make features that genuinely make me glad to be a paying customer .

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