Brandon has been involved in tech journalism since the year 2000 and was part of the OG team of XDA and Pocketnow.
Spotify quietly rolled out a new feature recently that has changed the way I listen to music by using prompt-based AI to make and edit playlists simply based on AI prompting. If AI-based software development is "vibe-coding," since you can conversationally tell an AI what you want to build, in a similar way, Spotify's AI playlist feature is "vibe-listening" because you can conversationally tell the AI what you're in the mood for. Seconds later, you have a playlist that matches your mood. This opens a world of possibilities, as we'll explore in this article.
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To get started, simply hit the Plus icon in the bottom right and go to AI Playlist beta. For now, this is only available to Spotify Premium users, but it will come to all users eventually. From there, you'll get a splash screen that shows you some suggestions to get started. Like using any AI tool, the key is the prompt: be as specific as possible. For example, "Greenday" is not as good as "Greenday but with a modern twist, with inspiration from grunge rock bands like Nirvana and Foo Fighters."
There are essentially three ways I've come up with to best prompt Spotify AI: based on vibe, feeling, and music tastes. Let's explore each.
Spotify OS Android, Windows, Linux & Mac Price model Free (open-source)
Spotify is a music streaming app, available in both free and premium tiers
Expand Collapse AI playlists based on vibe Ideal for occasions, circumstances, or outcomes
When prompting to a certain vibe, think about the end result. Are you training for a marathon and need to get the blood flowing? Are you studying and need some classical tracks to help you concentrate? Are you having your boomer parents over for dinner and need something that appeals to their classic rock musical tastes? Or perhaps you are celebrating the birthday of someone born in the 1980s, and you want an upbeat playlist that reflects the colorful electronic music of the 80s?
AI playlists based on feeling and emotion Music creates emotion -- let the AI do the work for you
When prompting to a feeling or emotion, try to get in touch with how you want the music to make you feel. Did you just experience a breakup and need music to uplift you in this difficult time? Is it date night, and you need music to make you and your partner feel more loving and together? Did something terrible just happen, and you need a playlist to help you through your angry emotions with powerful guitar-shredding metal riffs?
AI playlists based on your music tastes Let the album, artists, or songs be your starting point
When prompting about your music tastes, give the AI clear direction of what kind of music you like and what you don't. Perhaps you want to hear a playlist with plenty of 90s gangster rap from 2pac and Biggie, but with a modern twist with influences from Kendrick Lamar and Nas? Or maybe you're on a classic rock kick and want a playlist with the Beatles and the many bands influenced by them? Just be specific in the prompt. Or perhaps you're in love with the silky-smooth lyrics and feelings of Joni Mitchell's Blue album, but want to hear some modern interpretations of her breakthrough music style?
Mix and remix Use AI playlist's tools to keep the music flowing Close
Spotify AI Playlist isn't done after you create and save the playlist. You can go back into any AI Playlist from your Spotify library and make further refinements. In this way, Spotify is giving you a near-endless set of tools to create, modify, edit, and remix AI playlists.
Refine: this is ideal for tweaking. For example, "Make this more upbeat" or "Focus on female vocalists" will cause the AI to make changes based on your refinements. Add: Want more? You can prompt the AI to expand the playlist. For example, "add 10 more songs" or "add five more songs, but focus on music from the 1970s." Edit: This is what you use to fine-tune your AI playlist. Remove tracks, rearrange their order, and more. Close Mix: This is super cool. Using the Mix button will turn your playlist into a seamless DJ set based on the songs' beats per minute (BPM) and what musical key they are in. Since human DJs do this intuitively when picking a sequence of songs, having the AI change the playlist order based on BPM and music key leads to a smoother song-to-song experience. As shown above, Spotify even lets you "see" and tweak the transitions between each song when you have the AI do a mix.
Spotify is giving you a near-endless set of tools to create, modify, edit, and remix AI playlists
Human-curation is still better sometimes
While I highly recommend you try our AI Playlist on Spotify, I will say that the playlists it makes are lacking a bit of something. You can already access thousands of human-made playlists on Spotify that take into consideration a very key element of a successful playlist: track progression. The best playlists made by humans sometimes have a near-perfect progression of tracks to capture just the right feeling of a genre, music, or an artist. While AI Playlist has a lot of tools to refine and tweak playlists, overall, I still prefer a mix of both human-curated playlists and the fun AI-made ones.
