YouTube Music Enhances AI-Powered Features for Personalized Playlist Creation

YouTube Music now lets you fine-tune AI radios, upload custom thumbnails on Android

After making Ask Music more prominent in the Home feed and bringing to iOS, YouTube Music today announced the ability to tune AI radios, as well as a handful of other features. Following last year's introduction, YouTube Music users can now tune their AI radios. After generating an Ask Music playlist, the chat UI page will show suggested follow-up prompts, like: "more upbeat," "just jazz songs" or "only female vocals." You can also type your own, with the generated radio updating itself above. As of today, Ask Music is available for YouTube Music Premium subscribers on Android and iOS in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Meanwhile, YTM is confirming the launch of Gemini-generated My Mix titles that reflect the overall mood of the personalized playlist. It's also a faster way to browse and play. This is currently available for US YouTube Music Premium users only. After introducing on the web last year, YouTube Music for Android now lets you upload custom playlist thumbnails. Open a playlist and tap the pencil icon in the 2×2 cover art for: Choose from library or Take photo. Google tells us today that uploads are coming to iOS in the coming months. Finally, when using AI to generate custom playlist artwork, YTM has added new "Workout" and "Instruments" themes. This joins Colors, Cycles, Travel, Moods, Nature, Animals, Landscapes, Food and Drinks, and Fantasy.

YouTube Music lets you prompt your way to better playlists

YouTube Music is adding flexibility to its relatively fresh AI "radio" feature. You can now tune your "Ask Music" stations to align better with your interests. This is just one of the new features coming to iOS. First introduced last year as a quasi-alternative to Spotify's AI Playlist feature, "Ask Music" lets you create custom playlists or "radio" stations by typing or speaking what you'd like to hear. Recommended Videos From there, YouTube Music will generate playlists based on moods, genres, activities, or descriptions. You can save the generated playlists to your library. Please enable Javascript to view this content Now, there are also follow-up prompts. For example, using Ask Music, I'm looking for "fun songs for a Wednesday afternoon." Follow-up prompts include "only pop stars," "energetic indie rock," and more. Currently, Ask Music is limited to YouTube Music Premium users on Android and iOS in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. As noted by 9to5Google, YouTube Music is also introducing new "My Mix" titles generated by Gemini, Google's AI assistant. These titles aim to capture the overall mood of personalized playlists better. Previously, these mixes were only identified by numbers. With this upgrade, they will now have more descriptive names that reflect the genre and artists included in each blend. "My Mix" is available exclusively to YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscribers, in the U.S. only. Its algorithmically generated playlists are tailored to individual music tastes, drawing from users' listening history, liked songs, and overall activity within YouTube Music. Finally, YouTube Music is expanding the topics that are available when you use AI to generate custom playlist artwork. Workout and Instruments themes have been added to Colors, Cycles, Travel, Moods, Nature, Animals, Landscapes, Food and Drinks, and Fantasy. The music streaming market in the U.S. is primarily dominated by Spotify and Apple Music, with Amazon Music and YouTube Music following closely behind. YouTube Music, in particular, is gaining popularity due to its unique combination of music and music videos. It's encouraging to see new features being added to the service.

YouTube Music's AI playlists just got way more personal

YouTube Music has updated its AI-powered recommendation engine, making it easier for users to fine-tune automatically generated playlists. Last year, the platform rolled out its Ask Music playlists. These are rooted in the description of a desired vibe -- automatically generated with the help of artificial intelligence. Originally, Google adjusted this interface to encourage experimentation with Ask Music by creating broader, search-based options. Now, 9to5Google reports that you can go a step further with your Ask Music playlist refinements. If a generated playlist misses the mark, you can now tweak it through new suggestions based on your more specific inputs. For example, users can refine by genre, tempo, or artists, such as specifying that they only want to hear female vocalist tracks for more personalized content. Additionally, YouTube Music has expanded the geographical availability of this enhanced Ask Music feature. It's now accessible for YouTube Music Premium users in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. YouTube Music's updates go beyond refinements for the Ask Music feature. They also include upgrades for automatic My Mix playlists. Starting today, Premium subscribers in the US will see Gemini-created descriptive titles for their automatic My Mix playlists. Presently, updates to custom playlist art also extend to mobile devices beyond just the web, as this feature is now available on Android devices. iOS users will gain this capability in a few months. Though YouTube Music's refined AI recommendations grant listeners increased control, users may struggle if asked for too much specificity -- let's hope this doesn't inadvertently stifle serendipitous finds. Still, focusing on how users can demand string quartets under the moonlight -- or whatever vibe they want for their Ask Music playlist -- it adds another layer of personalization to a platform that's already adept at tailoring experiences: personalized to the point of removing uncertainty. The expanded availability to multiple countries hints at YouTube Music's intent to create universally appealing yet uncomplicated AI interaction methods worldwide -- to see if that's up to the mark, it's reasonable to be skeptical.