Spotify CEO reveals plans for AI-powered personalisation, ads and more

Spotify could come up with a bunch of new AI-powered features. The company’s CEO Daniel Ek hinted at how AI could enhance personalisation, create podcast summaries and produce ads during the earnings call for the second quarter, as reported by a media publication.

Spotify already has an AI-powered DJ feature, which was launched earlier this year. The AI DJ is a personalised AI guide that first understands the kind of music that an individual likes and then plays the songs that it deems he/she will like. 

Ek says the streaming service will offer more AI-powered features like this that aim to personalise and explain content in the future, according to a TechCrunch report. 

“It’s probably one of my personal favourites over the last few years that we have developed, and we’ve seen really strong consumer interactions with that. And that just talks about the ability for us to contextualize and personalize all the amazing content that we are have on the Spotify platform. So I think you’re going to see a lot more of that where we can contextualize and personalize content across the entire platform to make it more accessible,” Ek said during the call as reported by TechCrunch.

The report also quotes Ek as saying that generative AI could help Spotify create summaries of podcasts, which could make it easier for consumers to discover new podcasts. He said this would benefit both users and creators by increasing engagement and growth. 

Spotify could also use AI to generate AI audio ads that could make Spotify more efficient. 

“By using generative AI and our tools here, I think you’re going to be able to see that we can significantly reduce the cost that it takes for advertisers to develop new ad formats,” TechCrunch quotes EK.

“And that obviously means that you as an advertiser instead of having one ad, you can imagine having thousands and tested across the Spotify networks, things that you could easily do today using text but you haven’t been able to do over video or in audio,” Ek adds.

Ek’s comment has come at a time when Spotify is working on a patent for an AI system that can turn text into speech audio that sounds human and expresses emotion and intention. The patent was filed in February and published on July 20. The technology can produce speech that can sound angry, happy or sad, as well as sarcastic. It can also whisper, shout, and use accents.