Spotify says its best developers haven't written a line of code since December, thanks to AI

Spotify says its best developers haven't written a line of code since December, thanks to AI | TechCrunch

Has AI coding reached a tipping point? That seems to be the case for Spotify at least, which shared this week during its fourth-quarter earnings that the best developers at the company "have not written a single line of code since December." That statement, from Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström, came alongside other comments about how the company is using AI to accelerate development. Of note, Spotify pointed out it shipped more than 50 new features and changes to its streaming app throughout 2025. And, most recently, has rolled out more features, like AI-powered Prompted Playlists, Page Match for audiobooks, and About This Song, which all launched within the past few weeks. At Spotify, engineers are using an internal system called "Honk" to speed up coding and product velocity, the company told analysts on the call. This system allows for things like remote, real-time code deployment using generative AI, and specifically Claude Code. "As a concrete example, an engineer at Spotify on their morning commute from Slack on their cell phone can tell Claude to fix a bug or add a new feature to the iOS app," Söderström said. "And once Claude finishes that work, the engineer then gets a new version of the app, pushed to them on Slack on their phone, so that he can then merge it to production, all before they even arrive at the office." Spotify credited the system in helping to speed up coding and deployment "tremendously." "We foresee this not being the end of the line in terms of AI development, just the beginning," Söderström said. The exec also touted Spotify's ability to build a unique dataset that other LLMs could not commoditize, the way they could other online resources, like Wikipedia. That's because there's not always a factual answer for music-related questions, he said. For instance, if you asked what workout music is, you'd get different answers from different people, sometimes based on their geography. Americans tend to prefer hip-hop overall, though millions prefer death metal. And while a number of Europeans would work out to EDM, many Scandinavians like heavy metal. "This is a dataset that we are building right now that no one else is really building. It does not exist at this scale. And we see it improving every time we retrain our models," Söderström noted. Analysts on the call also asked about Spotify's approach to AI-generated music. The company explained that it's allowing artists and labels to indicate in a track's metadata how the song was made, but is still policing the platform for spam.

Spotify: AI is doing the heavy lifting for our coding now

According to the music streaming platform Spotify and its co-CEO Gustav Söderström, the company's best developers "have not written a single line of code since December." Yet Spotify continues to roll out new features at the same pace, with more than 50 launches last year. How are they doing this? During Spotify's fourth quarter earnings call this week, the company said its all thanks to AI. Spotify engineers use an internal system known as "Honk," which helps speed up coding productivity with AI. Honk utilizes Anthropic's Claude Code to enable AI coding and remote, real-time deployment of the code, readying it for a production environment. Spotify is hardly the only major company that now relies on AI for the majority of its coding. Anthropic itself used Claude to build its recently launched Claude Cowork tool, and leaders at Meta and Microsoft have said AI is taking on more and more coding work. Söderström provided an example during the call of a developer telling Claude to fix a bug on their commute, the AI fixes the issue then creates a new version of the app, and it's ready for the engineer to push live when they get to the office. The Spotify CEO also believes this is just the beginning in terms of what AI can do for coding and development. In other AI-related news discussed during the Spotify call, the company shared that its Large Language Model (LLM) has a unique dataset because music-related questions are often opinion-based and don't have a single correct answer. Spotify also clarified that while it allows AI-generated music on the platform, which will be labeled as such in the track's metadata, it still monitors the platform for AI-generated spam content. In addition to AI news, Spotify credited its end-of-the-year Wrapped campaign with bringing in 38 million new users in Q4 alone. Spotify currently boasts a user base of 751 million monthly active users, with 290 million of them paying subscribers.

Spotify engineers no longer code, company says -- AI now does the heavy lifting

Spotify AI coding: Spotify has reached a new milestone in AI-driven development, according to co-CEO Gustav Söderström, the company's top engineers "have not written a single line of code since December," as quoted in a report. Instead, the work is being handled by the streaming giant's internal AI system, called "Honk," which leverages generative AI and Anthropic's Claude Code to accelerate coding and product deployment. During Spotify's fourth-quarter earnings call, Söderström explained how the system works in practice. Engineers can now, for example, instruct Claude on their morning commute via Slack to fix a bug or add a new feature to the iOS app, as per a TechCrunch report. Once Claude completes the task, the updated app version is pushed back to the engineer, ready to merge into production before they even arrive at the office. Also read: AI was supposed to replace these jobs -- IBM is now hiring more of them Throughout 2025, Spotify shipped more than 50 new features and updates to its app, including AI-powered Prompted Playlists, Page Match for audiobooks, and the recently launched About This Song feature. The company credits Honk with speeding up coding and deployment "tremendously." Spotify is also building a unique dataset that other large language models cannot easily replicate. Music-related questions often have no single factual answer, what workout music someone prefers can vary by geography and taste, from hip-hop in the US to heavy metal in Scandinavia. By training AI on this proprietary dataset, Spotify is creating models that improve with each retraining cycle, offering a competitive edge in personalization and recommendations. Söderström said, "This is a dataset that we are building right now that no one else is really building. It does not exist at this scale. And we see it improving every time we retrain our models," as quoted by TechCrunch. Also read: Quote of the day by Diogenes the Cynic: 'We have two ears and one tongue so that we would...' - lessons on active listening by Greek philosopher When analysts asked about AI-generated music, Spotify said it allows artists and labels to indicate in track metadata whether a song was AI-assisted while actively policing the platform for spam. Honk represents a significant leap for Spotify, putting the company ahead of competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music, which are still exploring AI integration in engineering. By building an AI layer fine-tuned to its own codebase, standards, and architecture, as per a Techbuzz report. What is Spotify's AI system "Honk"? It's an internal AI platform that uses Claude Code to handle coding and app updates. Are Spotify engineers still writing code? According to co-CEO Gustav Söderström, top engineers haven't written a line of code since December.