With Prompted Playlist, Spotify Wants AI to Understand the Moment, Not Just the Genre

Sitting down to write this article, I found myself thinking about the music that would put me in the right frame of mind to tell this story. My usual go-to playlist often does the job, but sometimes the moment calls for something more tailored. I know the feeling I’m chasing—but pinning it down by artist, genre, or even mood alone isn’t always that simple.

That tension is what makes music selection such a personal act—and it’s something Spotify appears to recognize. On Thursday, it’s launching Prompted Playlists in the U.S. and Canada, an AI-powered feature to help users translate those hard-to-define moments into the right playlist, drawing on listening history alongside what’s happening in music and culture today.

“Music isn’t passive, it’s really deeply personal,” Molly Holder, Spotify’s vice president of personalization, said at a press conference last week. “It changes with your mood, with your memories, and with what’s happening in your life.” She claims users no longer want the platform to just understand them; they want it to “actively shape their own experience.”

Initially released in New Zealand, Prompted Playlist is now expanding to North American users in a beta rollout for all platforms. Using a natural language prompt, you are no longer restricted to listening to their curated playlists or those from friends, artists, or even Spotify. If you’re looking for uplifting tracks when the weather outside is constantly freezing, for example, there’s a Prompted Playlist for that. Or, if you want a list of songs inspired by the finale of “Stranger Things,” all that’s needed is to ask.

“You don’t need to know the right words, categories, or genres. It’s just a way for the music to meet you where you are, and if you love being that person who finds the next great song, Prompted Playlist is your new secret weapon,” Holder explains. “It helps you discover that next deep cut before everyone does.”

Everything About Prompted Playlists

While Prompted Playlist is rolling out today, Spotify reminds users it’s still in beta. It’s exclusive to Premium subscribers, but it doesn’t appear to incur an additional fee. Still, usage limits exist, though Holder asserts most users should not be impacted.

For those granted access, to create a Prompted Playlist, tap “Create” and then select “Prompted Playlist.” Users can describe what they want to hear, whether it’s a specific vibe, scenario, or cultural moment. To help with inspiration, there’s an “Ideas” feature. “You can be as specific as you want to be, which I think is one of the most magical things about the product,” Holder points out.

The AI could, for instance, create a Grammys-inspired playlist. Users could craft a prompt asking for tracks from all nominees, with notes on the category for which they’re nominated and highlighting the artists the listener hasn’t been exposed to yet, but are similar to their tastes.

As part of my testing, I asked Spotify to create an upbeat, post-1990s pop playlist to keep me motivated during a long walk through a neighborhood park, with one added twist: every track had to be a DJ remix. The results largely delivered. I liked the mix enough to save several songs for future listening.

Users can also toggle the visibility of these generated playlists: public, meaning anyone can see the prompt and playlist if they’re shared with them, or private, in which case it stays hidden from prying eyes.

Moreover, there’s an option to set the frequency at which these playlists are refreshed—never, daily, or weekly. Once the Prompted Playlist has been created, an option to update the songs in real-time will be available. When the playlist refreshes, all the songs will be replaced, so be sure to save any favorites to other playlists.

Although only 50 songs will be visible when the playlist is generated, Spotify will play more after one rotation of the playlist. Songs are chosen based on a user’s listening history and real-time information about music trends, charts, culture, and history. Every song features a “note,” a one-liner statement explaining why it’s featured in the playlist.

The prompts themselves can be shared, even though the resulting playlists will differ from user to user, since Prompted Playlist draws on each listener’s individual listening history. “You’re not copying a playlist. You’re actually sharing an idea,” Holder says. “The prompts don’t just deliver songs, they’re really creating a story that’s unique to every listener.”

For now, Prompted Playlists is limited to creating music playlists, despite Spotify’s broader push into podcasts and audiobooks.

When asked about the best way to use Prompted Playlists, Spotify’s Head of Global Music Curation and Discovery, J.J. Italiano, advises users think about their prompt. “The best prompts usually have three things, like a mood or an intention, a little bit of direction, and room for a surprise.” He also offers this suggestion: Start with something familiar, like asking to explore music they already know, or delving into their own listening history. “The cool thing about that is you can always iterate on these prompts whenever you’d like, but if you start with something you’re familiar with, that’ll give you a pretty good idea of how much control in your hands,” he states.

A New Kind of Collaboration and Discovery

Spotify has a lot of faith in Prompted Playlists, with Italiano proclaiming that it will “allow our listeners to create directly alongside Spotify in an entirely new kind of collaboration.” He adds that artists will benefit from this tool, as it’ll further “intentional discovery,” helping their music reach the right listeners and convert them into loyal fans.

With this new approach to discovery, some may wonder whether artists can optimize their songs or library to improve the odds of being surfaced in these playlists. Could emerging artists somehow “game” the system and beat out the competition and raise their presence on Spotify? The company disputes that this could happen. And there appear to be few restrictions on how artists appear on the playlists. The platform doesn’t limit how many songs from a particular artist can appear, which makes sense because if you’re asking for a compilation of Bad Bunny or Lin-Manuel Miranda songs, why would you only show two or three?

“This will give a lot more opportunity to emerging artists,” Italiano believes. “We have a lot of playlists on Spotify that we’ve curated ourselves, but you can only go so specific. There’s a limit on how far that can go.” Prompted Playlist is a way to create new avenues for artists. “If you want to meet a listener exactly where they are for exactly what they’re looking for, this is a really great way to do it,” he explains. “I think for a lot of emerging artists, particularly artists who are in really specific genres, [they] are going to find a lot more audience this way, and the audience that they’ll be finding is going to be the most intentional audience—the people who are actually specifically looking for this thing.”

X Isn’t Going Anywhere

Prompted Playlist isn’t Spotify’s first foray into AI, and won’t be its last. The audio streaming platform also offers its AI Playlist, which turns any idea into a personalized playlist. Introduced in 2024, it’s available to Premium users in the United Kingdom and Australia.

“Think of Prompted Playlists as the next evolution of our personalized listening portfolio,” Holder remarks, emphasizing that it’s more about collaboration between users and Spotify versus adding more automation. That said, both AI Playlist and Prompted Playlist will co-exist, though they won’t be available in the same markets for the immediate term.

And let’s not forget about Spotify’s integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. With it, Free and Premium subscribers can ask the popular AI chatbot to generate personalized music and podcast recommendations. This is similar to Spotify’s Prompted Playlist, though with some noted differences—the ChatGPT tie-up is available to all users, while Prompted Playlist is exclusive to Premium customers. In addition, Prompted Playlist currently only supports music recommendations.

And now that users can have AI create their own custom-curated playlists, what will happen to X, the much-loved Spotify DJ voiced by Xavier ‘X’ Jernigan? Introduced in 2023, this feature provides users with personalized music with AI-powered commentary. Think of it as the equivalent of a radio DJ. Turns out there’s nothing to fear, as Holder reveals that although the DJ experience is a different product from Prompted Playlist, X “isn’t going anywhere. We love X. We know you love X.”

“Prompted Playlist offers a more intuitive entry point, letting users begin with moods, moments, or ideas in their own words, and build something that feels personal,” Sulinna Ong, Spotify’s global head of editorial, shares in a statement.

This feature is rolling out today across the U.S. and Canada and should be available to Premium users by the end of January.

Featured Image: Credit: Spotify