Spotify began rolling out a new conversational AI assistant to Premium subscribers this week, the latest expansion of the music streaming giant’s push into AI-powered features.
The tool, called Talk to Spotify, launched in beta Tuesday on iOS and Android in the United States, Ireland and Sweden, according to the company. Access is currently limited to Premium subscribers age 18 and older using the app in English, with no timeline announced for wider availability or international expansion.
The assistant lets users type or speak natural-language requests from the app’s Home and Now Playing screens to discover music, podcasts and audiobooks, and supports multi-turn conversations that build on earlier requests without needing to repeat context. Spotify’s own examples include asking the assistant to “play some artists I haven’t heard before,” then refining the results by requesting more upbeat tracks or limiting suggestions to recent releases. Users can also use the assistant to save songs, add tracks to a queue or follow an artist directly, and it can answer general trivia questions, such as an album’s release date.
A Spotify spokesperson told TechCrunch the company “blends its proprietary AI with models sourced from various vendors, selecting the most suitable option for each specific function.” The company did not disclose which third-party AI providers it is using for the feature.
Talk to Spotify builds on a series of AI features the company has introduced over the past several years, including AI DJ, an AI-narrated listening companion launched in 2023, and Prompted Playlists, which lets users generate playlists from written descriptions and expanded to the U.S. and Canada in January. At Spotify’s investor day in May, co-chief executive Gustav Söderström described the company’s broader AI strategy as building what he called a “Large Taste Model,” applying general-purpose AI techniques to Spotify’s own listening data rather than training foundation models from scratch.
The launch places Spotify in more direct competition with Amazon Music’s Alexa Plus and comes as rivals including Apple Music and YouTube Music also expand their own AI-driven features. Spotify, which reported 293 million Premium subscribers as of its most recent earnings, described Talk to Spotify as a beta and said the experience will be refined based on user feedback ahead of any broader rollout. The company cautioned that responses from the assistant “won’t always be perfect” during this testing phase.
Spotify did not immediately respond to questions about data privacy practices tied to the feature or whether it may eventually expand to advertising-supported free accounts. The company has previously faced scrutiny over AI-generated content appearing on its platform and its handling of artist royalties, and has said in public statements that it aims to develop AI features responsibly.
Further detail on the assistant’s performance and user reception is expected as Spotify expands the beta in the coming weeks.
