A deeper look at Spotify's new AI-powered DJ feature

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  • It's now available to users in the UK and Ireland.
  • A deeper look at Spotify's new AI-powered DJ feature image
  • Spotify's new AI-powered feature Spotify DJ is now available to paid users in the UK and Ireland. Developed in collaboration with voice technology company Sonantic and AI research lab OpenAI, Spotify DJ is designed to offer a more personalised listening experience. But AI has been around for a while, powering Spotify’s powerful recommendation algorithms, so how does this feature build on that? Spotify DJ combines generative AI and dynamic voice technology. The former is best defined as AI that generates content—whether images like DALL-E or text like ChatGPT. Sonantic, which is a text-to-speech tool, takes that generated information and delivers it in a human-sounding voice. (Here's a simple video on how Sonantic works.) In this case, Spotify's "DJ" is the voice of staffer Xavier "X" Jernigan. In practice, Spotify DJ recommends a lineup of songs based on what you're listening to at the time—which, for Spotify, is nothing new. The new part is the commentary. This can range from contextual information to comments like "the next song is…" As such, the term "DJ" is a bit of a stretch because there's no mixing happening. ("Radio host" is probably more accurate.) "For me the joy of listening to DJ sets is less about being talked to, and more about the seamless journey," said Ashley Hefnawy, AKA Myyuh, a New York-based DJ and long-time Spotify user. "And since there's no beatmatching or transitions, it's not really seamless." Some listeners will enjoy the extra nuggets of information, and it could even influence fandom over time, as it adds depth to the listening experience. "What I like with the new feature is that it gives you context for the music, like historical tidbits or details you didn't know about the artist's inspiration," said Water & Music researcher Lenny Skolnik, who makes music as Yung Spielberg. But for the passive listener, the commentary may be a turn-off. "The voice itself becomes distracting quickly though, and I'm not likely to have it on for long," Skolnik added. Many of the users interviewed for this article said they would've preferred a feature that blended tracks instead of a voice-led adaptation of the current Spotify algorithms. "The selections were great, but I can just go to a playlist for that, so I'm not sure what I'd use this for," Hefnawy said. The majority of recent innovations surrounding AI target creators instead of consumers, so it's notable that Spotify is the first major DSP to launch such a consumer-facing AI tool. This is an important development in itself—not only does Spotify have a head start, but it also has a huge advantage, considering the volume of data it has available to train intelligence models. (According to Forbes, Spotify is the market leader for DSPs.) AI has the capacity to revolutionise music creation, especially voice models like Sonantic or Holly+, which offer creative solutions for producers and podcasters. More than $5 billion of investment across 300-plus generative AI startups (spanning audio, visual, text and more) has been made to date. But according to Water & Music's research, only five percent of this funding has gone towards music-related tools (e.g. Splice, LANDR, Audioshake). The same report concluded that "artists are more interested in AI for promotional help, e.g. a marketing tool, than an audio creation tool." For W&M researcher Skolnik, "that means creating visual assets—for example either graphics or video to essentially reduce the amount of time spent on promoting and spend more time on making music." The demand for AI as a consumer discovery tool remains unclear. As these tools advance, their most interesting uses may come when they work hand in hand with human tastemakers, such as DJs. "Let's not view it as a direct competition between AI and creators," said Hefnawy. "It's never been and shouldn't be about one thing replacing the other." Correction, May 22nd: A previous version of this article said that Myyuh was a promoter in New York. She's actually a DJ.
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