Spotify's AI-powered DJ now takes song requests

Since it launched two years ago, Spotify's AI DJ has been a one-way experience. It curates old favorites and helps listeners discover new tracks based on past listening experience and what similar users like. But now it's getting interactive.
Spotify unveiled the ability to request songs from the DJ based on mood, genre, and vibe. The feature, which launched across 60 markets, is exclusive to Spotify Premium users, who can access the DJ by searching for the tool in the app.
It's the latest AI feature to come from Spotify, which introduced an AI-generated playlist builder for Premium users in the United States last fall. But Molly Holder, Spotify's senior director of product for personalization, says that tool was designed for people who want to take an active role in their listening experience. The new DJ request feature, by contrast, is designed to give users more input into an essentially 'lean back' experience.
'We know that even in a 'lean back' moment, users still want some semblance of control,' she says.
How does the DJ request feature work?
After a user searches for and calls up the DJ in the app, they can make a request by holding down the DJ icon and speaking a prompt. (The feature requires microphone access.) After receiving the prompt, such as 'upbeat songs for running' or 'ambient for a rainy day,' the DJ will 'think' for a bit before launching into a tailored playlist.
Focusing on mood or moment along with a genre tends to be the best approach for using the feature. Wanting to give it a slam dunk, I asked for 'early 2000s patriotic country' and immediately got Toby Keith's 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.' Not too hard. But when I asked for 'undiscovered African gems for a summer barbecue,' expecting Afrobeats and Amapiano, the DJ instead served songs from the African diaspora. (The first was by Timbuktu, who Spotify describes as 'one of Sweden's most well-known hip-hop artists.') Once I specified the genre, the results were better, but I'd forgotten to make clear I wanted undiscovered artists, so I got a lot of Tyla.
With several of the requests, the DJ seemed somewhat buggy, abruptly stopping a song and launching into its more default mode. When I asked for 'DIY indie rock from the mid-2010s,' it played a few bars from an early Mitski song, then reset itself and introduced my top songs from 2023.
Pairing insight with a human touch
Spotify's Holder says that while the DJ's content-surfacing abilities are powered by AI, many of the comments and insights that it delivers in between songs—the bits that make the tool feel like a personalized and expert experience—are powered by humans.
'We have music experts and editors who have built what's called the 'writer's room' for the DJ product,' she says. 'These folks come together with generative AI to build the commentary that DJ offers throughout the experience.'
This commentary can increase listener engagement—which can be beneficial for artists who are trying to break through as well. 'In that writer's room, when we build that commentary, it helps to bring artists' stories to life to bring a little bit more context to the content we're recommending,' Holder says. 'One thing we see is that users who hear commentary about a track in the DJ experience are more likely to listen to a track they might have otherwise skipped.'
Holder also positions the new feature in Spotify's long history of using machine learning to build personalization into the user experience, from Discovery Weekly to Daylists and now the DJ requests. 'We're really applying AI strategically across our product portfolio in ways that enhance the value proposition of our products.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Hypebeast

5 hours ago

• Hypebeast

Instagram 15 週年最新企劃號召 Rosalía、Clint419、Tyler, the Creator 等人助陣

今年即將邁入 15 週年的Instagram，於今日提早展開慶祝活動，推出迄今為止規模最大的品牌宣傳活動，並以一部短片作為開端，影片中匯集了當前塑造流行文化最具影響力的一些創意人士。 作為一系列即將推出的影片的首部曲，旨在探索追求創意時冒險的重要性，片名為「ANYWAY」的影片匯聚了音樂、時尚和藝術領域的傑出人物，包括Tyler, the Creator、Rosalía和Fred Again..，以及Corteiz的Clint 419、Cole Bennett、Nadia Lee Cohen和Slawn。 影片中，一群年輕人聚集在 Tyler 身旁，來自布朗克斯的 Trinity 向他傾訴自己在創意表達方面遇到的掙扎，以及尋求他人認可的困惑。 此宣傳活動與 Instagram 執行長Adam Mosseri的部落格文章一同發布，是該平台鼓勵其超過 20 億用戶發揮創意和勇於冒險的推動計畫之一。Mosseri 在其文章中寫道，公司「今年在創意方面的投入比以往任何時候都多」，並將影片中的演員描述為「具有強大影響力的聲音」，他們「提醒我們每個人都是從某處開始的」。他補充說，從用戶那裡收到的一個常見回饋是「將作品呈現於世時所伴隨的興奮與緊張感」。 他寫道：「人們談論冒險、信念的飛躍以及克服任何自我懷疑。」他補充說，他希望「Instagram 成為一個讓你可以克服自我懷疑，並且放手去做、分享、無論如何都去嘗試的地方。」 Mosseri 表示，Instagram 即將推出的一些變革包括，公司正在研究允許用戶重新排序其網格上的貼文，並「探索一種方式，讓你可以悄悄地發布到個人資料，而無需廣播到每個人的動態消息中」——這是一個有趣的特點，可以解決公開創意表達所帶來的壓力。此外，公司將繼續「大力投資」其最新應用程式 Edits（一款於 4 月發布的獨立影片編輯應用程式），Mosseri 承諾將推出新的「應用程式定義功能」。 除了參演其全球宣傳活動，Rosalía 還與 Instagram 合作，為 Stories 和 Reels 創作了一款受其手寫啟發的全新字體。該品牌也在其他方面加倍投入音樂領域，表示將引入「一種直接在 Notes 中分享你在 Spotify 上正在聽的內容的方式，以便透過音樂輕鬆與朋友連結」。 現在即可觀看上方的「ANYWAY」影片——請密切關注，Instagram 表示在「未來一年將與這些創意人士有更多合作」。 >Toyota Gazoo Racing 於 Le Mans 發表全新 GR LH2 液態氫動力概念賽車 >芬蘭設計巨頭聯手，Artek x Marimekko 推出全新聯名家具系列

Yahoo

18 hours ago

• Yahoo

Cardi B Releases First Song of 2025 'Outside' amid Estrangement from Offset: 'I Was Very, Very Angry'

Cardi B has released her first single of 2025 with "Outside" "I made this song a few months ago when I was very, very angry," the rapper said in a video on Instagram Stories ahead of its release Cardi debuted the song on Wednesday, June 18 during a Spotify event in CannesCardi B is back! On Friday, June 20, the rapper released her first single of 2025 with "Outside" after debuting it at a Spotify event in Cannes two days prior. "OUTSIDE 😤 IS OUT NOW," Cardi, 32, wrote in an Instagram post. She also celebrated the release with a video on Instagram Stories. "If y'all wouldn't have asked for it, I wouldn't have put it out," Cardi said in the video posted on Thursday, June 19. She continued: "I made this song a few months ago when I was very, very angry. I had to change some bars because I was angry, honey.' The summer anthem, which comes amid her estrangement from Offset, was produced by Charlie Heat and HeyMicki, per Genius. 'When I tell you these n----- ain't shit, please believe me (Let's go),' Cardi raps on the track 'They gon' f--- on anything, these n----- way too easy (Facts) / Good for nothing, low-down, dirty dogs, I'm convinced (Yeah) / Next time you see your momma, tell her how she raised a bitch." On Wednesday, June 18, Cardi performed "Outside" live for the first time during Spotify's Cannes event. According to Variety, she played Megan Thee Stallion team-ups "Bongos" and "WAP" and performed songs including 'I Like It,' 'Bodak Yellow,' 'Money" and 'Up." PEOPLE can confirm she also performed her song "Bartier Cardi," but noticeably didn't mention Offset's name during the song. According to the publication, Cardi noted she was having 'a bad day today" in the midst of the show, saying she wasn't sure 'if it's because I'm sleepy or hungry but there's always tomorrow.' In a live X Spaces conversation in March, Cardi discussed her long-awaited sophomore album and specifically addressed the "features" on her new music. 'The features on my album are really good,' she began, noting that she won't have "a lot of features." is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! Cardi added: "I'm working with artists, some that I have worked [with] before and some that I haven't worked [with] before." She then noted that she was "really, really surprise y'all." "And it's such a vibe," said Cardi. "I could tell you this – I'm 100 percent confident with this album. I just don't think what I got is out there." Read the original article on People

Atlantic

a day ago

• Atlantic

The Perverse Pride of Having Never Owned a Smartphone

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Unlike nearly 98 percent of Americans under the age of 50, I don't have a smartphone. Actually, I've never had a smartphone. I've never called an Uber, never 'dropped a pin,' never used Venmo or Spotify or a dating app, never been in a group chat, never been jealous of someone on Instagram (because I've never been on Instagram). I used to feel ashamed of this, or rather, I was made to feel ashamed. For a long time, people either didn't believe me when I told them that I didn't have a smartphone, or reacted with a sort of embarrassed disdain, like they'd just realized I was the source of an unpleasant odor they'd been ignoring. But over the past two years, the reaction has changed. As the costs of being always online have become more apparent, the offline, air-gapped, inaccessible person has become an object of fascination, even envy. I have to confess that I've become a little smug about being a Never-Phoner—a holdout who somehow went from being left behind to ahead of the curve. How far ahead is difficult to say. I think I've avoided the worst effects of the smartphone: the stunned, preoccupied affect; the social atrophy; the hunched posture and long horizontal neck creases of the power scroller. I'm pretty sure my attention span is better than many others', based on the number of people I've observed in movie theaters who either check their phone every few minutes (about half) or scroll throughout the entire movie (always a handful). I will, by the way, let you know if I witness you engaging in similar behavior: If you look at your phone more than once an hour, I will call you an 'iPad baby'; if you put on an auto-generated Spotify playlist, I'll call you 'a hog at the slop trough.' Being phoneless has definitely had downsides. The pockets of every jacket I own are filled with maps scrawled on napkins, receipts, and utility bills torn in half to get me to unfamiliar places. I once missed an important job interview because I'd mislabeled the streets on my hastily sketched map. At the end of group dinners, when someone says, 'Everyone Venmo me $37.50,' the two 20s I offer are taken up like a severed ear. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally get wistful about all the banter I'm probably missing out on in group chats. Still, I've held out, though it's hard to articulate exactly why. The common anti-smartphone angles don't really land with me. The cranky 'Get off your darn phone!' seems a little too close to 'Get off my lawn!'—a knee-jerk aversion to new things is, if not the root of all evil, then the root of all dullness. The popular exhortations to 'be fully present in the moment' also seem misguided. I think the person utterly absorbed in an Instagram Reel as they shuffle into the crosswalk against the light, narrowly saved by the 'Ahem, excuse me' double-tap on the horn that bus drivers use to tell you that you're a split second from being reunited with your childhood dog, is probably living in the moment to a degree usually achieved only by Buddhist monks; the problem is just that it's the wrong moment. Read: Why are there so many 'alternative devices' all of a sudden? Mostly, I think the reason I don't opt for the more frictionless phone life is that I can't help noticing how much people have changed in the decade or so since smartphones have become ubiquitous. I used to marvel at the walking scroller's ability to sightlessly navigate the crowd, possibly using some kind of batlike sonar. But then, on occasion, whether out of a vague antisocial impulse (not infrequent) or simple necessity (as in navigating a narrow aisle at the grocery store), I'd play a game of chicken with one of these people, walking directly toward them to see when they'd veer off. A surprising percentage of the time, they didn't, and after the collision, they'd always blame me. Eventually, I realized they're not navigating anything; they've just outsourced responsibility for their corporeal self to everyone else around them, much as many people have outsourced their memory to their phone. You're probably saying, well, at least they're on foot, and not driving a car. But many people look at their phones behind the wheel too. At a four-way stop, oftentimes the driver who yields to the crossing vehicle will steal a half-second look at their phone while they wait. At red lights, I see people all the time who don't look up from their phone when the light turns green—they just depress the gas when the car in front of them moves. Less hazardous but somehow more disturbing are the people I see scrolling in parked cars late at night. When I glance over—startled by the sudden appearance of a disembodied, underlit face on an otherwise deserted block—these people typically glare back, looking aggrieved and put-upon, as if I've broken a contract I didn't know I'd agreed to. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe they share a bed with a light sleeper, or have six annoying kids bouncing off the walls at home. But it happens often enough that I've come to think of them as the embodiment of contemporary alienation. Twenty-five years ago, we had Bowling Alone; today, we have scrolling alone. Of course, a phone is just a medium, no different on some level from a laptop or a book, and the blanket 'phone bad' position elides the fact that people could be doing a nearly infinite number of things on them, many of them productive. The guy hunched intently over his phone at the gym might be reading the latest research on novel cancer treatments. But probably not. Once, a guy at my gym, whose shoulder I looked over as he used the stationary bike in front of me, was talking to an AI-anime-schoolgirl chatbot on his phone. She was telling him, in a very small, breathy voice, how she'd been in line at the store earlier, and when someone had cut in front of her, she'd politely spoken up and asked them to go to the back of the line. 'That's great, baby,' he said. 'I'm so proud of you for standing up for yourself.' This is more or less typical of the stuff I spy people doing on their phone—self-abasing, a devitalized substitute for some real-life activity, and incredibly demoralizing, at least in the eyes of a phoneless naif. Many times, I've watched friends open a group chat, sigh, and go through a huge backlog of unread messages, mechanically dispensing heart eyes and laughing emoji—friendship as a data-entry gig you aren't paid for, yet can't quit. I have a girlfriend, but one of my friends often lets me watch as he uses the dating apps. Like most men (including myself), he overestimates his attractiveness while underestimating the attractiveness of the women he swipes on. 'I guess I'll give her a chance,' he'll say, swiping right on a woman whom ancient civilizations would've gone to war over. As long as this friend does his daily quota of swipes, he's 'out there and on the market,' he tells me, and there's 'nothing more he can do.' Yet we go to the same coffee shop, and several times a week, we see a woman who seems to be his perfect match. Each day, he comes in, reads his little autofiction book, then takes out his laptop to peck away at a little autofiction manuscript. Each day, she comes in, reads her little autofiction book, then takes out her laptop to peck away at what we've theorized must also be a little autofiction manuscript. Sometimes they sit, by chance, at adjacent tables, so close that I'm sure he can smell her perfume. On these occasions, I try to encourage him from across the room—I raise my eyebrows suggestively, I subtly thrust my hips under the table. After she leaves, I go over and ask why he didn't talk to her; he reacts as if I suggested a self-appendectomy. 'Maybe I'll see her on the apps,' he says, of the woman he's just seen in real life for the 300th time. I don't blame him. He's 36 and has only ever dated through apps. Meeting people in public does seem exponentially harder than it was just 10 years ago. The bars seem mostly full of insular friend groups and people nervously awaiting their app dates. (Few things are more depressing than witnessing the initial meeting of app users. 'Taylor … ? Hi, Riley.' The firm salesmanlike handshake, the leaning hug with feet kept at maximum distance, both speaking over each other in their job-interview voices.) I often see people come into a bar, order a single drink, sit looking at their phone for 20 to 30 minutes, and then leave. Maybe they're being ghosted. Or maybe they're doing exactly what they intended to do. But they frequently look disappointed; I imagine that their visit was an attempt at something—giving serendipity an opportunity to tap them on the shoulder and say, Here you go, here's the encounter that will fix you. Witnessing all of this, I sense that a huge amount of social and libidinal energy has been withdrawn from the real world. Where has it all gone? Data centers? The comments? Many critics of smartphones say that phones have made people narcissists, but I don't think that's right. Narcissists need other people; the emotional charge of engagement is their lifeblood. What the oblivious walking scroller, the driving texter, the unrealistic dating-app swiper have in common is almost the opposite—a quality closer to the insularity of solipsism, the belief that you're the one person who actually exists and that other people are fundamentally unreal. Solipsism, though, is a form of isolation, and to become accustomed to it is to make yourself a kind of recluse, capable of mimicking normalcy yet only truly comfortable shuffling among your feeds, muttering darkly to yourself. I know that my refusal to get a smartphone is an implicit admission that I would become just as addicted to it as anyone else. Recently, my girlfriend handed me her phone and told me to put on music for sex; a few minutes later, she leaned over to see what was taking so long. I had been looking at the Wikipedia page for soft-serve ice cream. I have no idea why I was looking at that or even how I'd gotten there. It's like the sudden availability of unlimited information had sent me into a fugue state, and I just started swiping and scrolling. I guess I looked into the void and fell in. I won't lie; it felt kind of nice, giving up.