Spotify’s new playlist tool might be its best yet

What’s the one thing you’ve always wanted to do on Spotify?

That’s right: you want greater access to your Spotify algorithm to prod and poke and make new playlists, scoop out nostalgic bangers, and infuse them with your favorite track from last year.

Okay, so maybe that’s not what you’ve always dreamed about doing on Spotify, but Prompted Playlist is a huge step toward giving us much more control over how we experience music on Spotify. And while Prompted Playlist is still a beta feature under active development, it’s clear this will be a game-changer for making personal playlists on the world’s most popular streaming service—and I’ve already given it a try.

I’m all in on Spotify’s upgraded AI playlists

Prompted Playlist isn’t replacing AI Playlist

At the end of 2025, Spotify started testing a new AI-powered playlist feature in New Zealand: Prompted Playlist. On the face of it, Prompted Playlist sounds conceptually similar to Spotify’s existing AI playlist tool, the aptly named AI Playlist. Indeed, when Spotify revealed its new AI tool to me—before I knew all the details—I struggled to envisage how this was different.

But functionally, Prompted Playlist is effectively the evolution of the original tool, turning it from a basic AI playlist creator into a more powerful prompting platform that can interact with your Spotify algorithm, understanding complex requests, and ultimately giving you more control.

So, instead of simply asking the AI Playlist “create a playlist with techno tracks I listened to last year” and getting a list of 30 tracks, you can be much more specific; “give me a playlist with techno tracks i listened to last year but don’t include anything with more than three plays, and make it only British artists,” you get a proper playlist specificly matching that input.

Now, that’s quite niche, obviously, but it shows how specific you can be with Prompted Playlist versus AI Playlist, tapping directly into your Spotify algo like never before.

Interestingly, Spotify confirmed to me that Prompted Playlist isn’t replacing the original AI Playlist tool. The two AI playlist creation tools will live alongside each other, with the original seen as a quicker way to make playlists on the go and Prompted Playlist more as an advanced, more detail-oriented option.

It’s a beta mode, but it’s still great fun to see what you can make

You can really tap into your listening history

As said, Prompted Playlist is more akin to prompting ChatGPT than just asking for 30 tracks for a summertime jam. You can get quite experimental with it, and I’m absolutely certain people are going to find ways to push Prompted Playlist into strange new areas.

I started with some basic prompts, such as “Bring back songs I used to love but haven’t played this year,” but realised prompting like this is almost too basic. So, instead, I prompted “Create a playlist featuring my top 3 songs from each year I’ve been a Spotify subscriber,” and I have to say, this was a nice little look back into my musical history on the platform (and a surprising number of tracks I still listen to daily).

The small notes Prompted Playlist adds are also a nice touch, and on some playlists that use more descriptive or narrative styles, help you understand what Spotify envisaged. Case in point, I asked Prompted Playlist to make a “a playlist that captures the feeling of a really good English cooked breakfast, with perfect poached eggs, black pudding, hash browns, and everything else, served on a warm plate with buttered toast.” I wasn’t overly impressed with the playlist, but the notes for each track explained reasoning such as “Warm, lightly toasted acoustics open the menu,” and “Slow comfort food rock, savory as black pudding.”

How about a playlist that represents MakeUseOf, where every track name starts with one of the letters of the website name? Prompted Playlist duly complied and delivered a 50-track experience with each letter in order. Or a playlist exploring the music I listened to on April 25, 2024? Again, delivered in order, apparently with the specific times I listened to the tracks on that date, which is remarkable.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for Prompted Playlist. Spotify also lists a decent range of prompts to get you started, too. They’re surprisingly handy to show you the range of what Prompted Playlist can do, such as find trending songs on TikTok for the week, pull in songs mentioned in the top podcasts, and so on.

Being an AI tool, I also tried to push Prompted Playlist for other responses. Could it whip up 500 words on Spotify’s use of AI across its platforms? Can it be prompted to drop a brownie recipe? Unfortunately, no. It also can’t grab data from your friends either (similar to Spotify Blend) and make a playlist, though I wonder if that might come at a later date (that said, I can see how problematic that could be depending on scope).

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You’re using Spotify wrong if you haven’t tried this feature yet

Prompt-based AI “vibe listening” is here

Spotify Prompted Playlist is rolling out soon

Like all tech companies, Spotify has embraced AI across its platform, for better or worse.

There was the curious viral moment of The Velvet Sundown, a completely AI band that rose to the top of Spotify’s streaming charts, reminding us that it won’t be long until AI and real artists will compete full-time for our attention. Then there are features like Spotify’s AI DJ that no other music service can compete with, serving up a constant stream of hits, new songs, past favorites, and so on.

I like that Prompted Playlist brings much more direct engagement with your algorithm, something Spotify subscribers have dreamed about for a long time. Now that it’s here, people are going to have a lot of fun figuring out just how far you can prompt Spotify. Ultimately, you’re still limited by its music and playlists (and as Prompted Playlist is currently in beta, actual limitations to playlist lengths), but that doesn’t mean you can push and probe to see what happens.

Spotify is rolling out its new Prompted Playlist feature to Premium subscribers in the US and Canada by the end of the month, and folks in New Zealand will retain access. However, according to Spotify, there is no specific timeframe for the UK and EU rollout at the time of writing.