Key Takeaways
- Spotify’s AI Playlist feature creates personalized playlists based on simple text prompts.
- The AI works by analyzing keywords to recommend songs, utilizing Spotify’s recommendation engine.
- You can refine the playlists by adding more details, such as genre, mood, and activities, for better results.
Creating playlists on Spotify is one of those simple pleasures in life that I probably enjoy more than I should. However, Spotify’s AI Playlist feature means I can have Spotify create a playlist now without any input from me beyond a simple text prompt. It’s simple, it’s fun to experiment with, and it could broaden your musical horizons.
Generative AI is everywhere, with companies rushing to add artificial intelligence elements to products and services. While many of these additions feel unnecessary and unwanted, Spotify’s AI features are actually proving useful.
Many people already use Spotify’s AI DJ to add some variety to their listening habits. Spotify now also offers an AI Playlist tool that, as the name suggests, creates playlists from prompts. Currently in beta, Spotify’s AI Playlist feature allows you to “Turn your ideas into playlists with AI.” You tell Spotify what you want to listen to today, and the artificial intelligence bot will do the rest.
It works by looking for keywords in your searches and packing the playlist with matching songs. While AI is involved, the core technology driving this feature is Spotify’s recommendation engine. Spotify has a host of metadata associated with each song and matches songs with users and their tastes accordingly.
This is how Spotify knows what songs you’ll like before you do; a listener who likes Song A will probably like Song B based on X, Y, and Z. Now, the same basic idea is used to create playlists based on simple keyword prompts.
To create a new playlist using Spotify’s AI Playlist tool:
- Tap the Your Library tab at the bottom of the app.
- Tap the + button in the top-right of the app, and select AI Playlist from the options that pop up.
- You can use one of the prompts provided, or write your own in the “Tell me your ideas” text box.
- Once Spotify creates the playlist, you can tap + to add tracks to the playlist or tap – to remove them.
- Once you’re happy with the songs included, click Create in the bottom right to save your playlist to your library.
It should be noted that even after you have created a playlist using the AI Playlist tool, you can still refine it, edit it, or delete it just as you would with any other playlist. This means you can experiment to your heart’s content without being lumbered with playlists you don’t want.
How to Refine Your AI Prompts and Get Better Results
Getting Spotify to create an AI Playlist is obviously very simple. However, you may not be getting the desired results, which is where refining the text prompts you’re feeding AI comes into play. Spotify and its AI bot are only as good as the prompt it sees, so the more information you can provide, the better.
The first thing to do is include all the relevant information in the initial prompt. Include more than one element, whether genre, mood, artist, or decade. As an example, “70s rock music with an upbeat feel” will garner a much better playlist than “70s rock” would on its own.
Next, look to include more than just genres or decades, such as places, activities, or colors. Examples would be “Take me back to Paris,” “High-energy songs for a workout,” and “Songs to cheer me up when I’m feeling blue”. Spotify even created a solid playlist for me based on, “Songs with a muted color palette,” which was filled with middle-of-the-road artists singing soppy songs.
Lastly, be sure to take Spotify up on its offer to “Refine this playlist,” giving further instructions for ways to tweak the songs added so that they hit the spot. And if Spotify still doesn’t get it right, just clear the conversation and start over.
