Spotify Wants AI Assistants to Pick Your Music
Soon you could ask an AI for a playlist and Spotify will deliver.
Spotify just announced a big bet on the future: it wants to be the music service that AI assistants turn to when you ask for audio. The company reported strong growth, with 788 million monthly users and nearly €5 billion in revenue. But the real news is how Spotify plans to stay ahead as AI agents (AI that can take actions for you) become more common.
Instead of opening the Spotify app and searching for music yourself, you could soon ask an AI assistant like ChatGPT to create a playlist for your run or a podcast about a topic you're interested in. Spotify wants to be the service those assistants use. It's already integrated with Meta's Muse, ChatGPT, and Claude. "Spotify is in one of the few categories that actually stands to thrive in the agentic age," said co-CEO Gustav Söderström. He argues that people love getting rid of chores, but entertainment is different—nobody asks an agent to "summarize a song" for them. So Spotify aims to make entertainment easier to access through conversation.
Spotify's pitch is also about personalization. Because Spotify has years of your listening history—the songs you love, skip, and discover—it can make recommendations that feel more personal than a generic AI assistant could. For example, you could ask Spotify to go through your listening history back to 2008, pick your true favorites, speed them up or slow them down, and mix them into the perfect running playlist at your exact cadence. And importantly, Spotify says it doesn't share your data with partners; the AI assistant just asks Spotify for something, and Spotify uses its own systems to decide what to play.
However, there's a catch: some big companies are already pushing back. Amazon, for example, has blocked Meta's Muse from shopping on its platform, showing that major players may restrict outside AI assistants over security, privacy, or commercial control. So while Spotify is leaning in, others are building walls. The question is whether Spotify's open approach will win out or face similar roadblocks.
- Spotify wants AI assistants like ChatGPT to recommend music for you, making it easier to get personalized playlists.
- Spotify has 788 million users and is already integrated with Meta's Muse, ChatGPT, and Claude.
- Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse, showing that some companies may not allow outside AI assistants to access their services.
Why It Matters
This could make finding music easier and more personal, but big tech companies might block AI assistants, limiting your choices.