Spotify to employ Google’s AI to enhance content discovery


Spotify, the popular music streaming service, said it will employ Google’s large language models (LLMs) to analyze its content library for sharper content recommendations.

Spotify, a popular audio content streaming platform, has been pioneering curated content segments for years, with tailor-made playlists like Discover Weekly and Release Radar.

Now, it seems the Stockholm-based platform wants to improve its podcast and audiobook sections. Spotify has announced it will “explore using” Google Cloud’s AI tools to better understand its content library and provide users with more accurate recommendations.

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It’s hardly a surprise that Spotify sides with Google in its AI applications, as the streaming platform has been using Google Cloud to store its content since 2016.

“Spotify is exploring LLMs to better understand the breadth of its content library and augment the metadata used to present this content to users every day,” the platform said in a joint statement with Google Cloud.

As the platform tries to consolidate its position in podcast and audiobook distribution, artificial intelligence and machine learning may also serve as a tool for sharper personalized recommendations.

The company said that AI could be used to understand its 5 million podcasts and 200,000 audiobooks library, as well as user listening patterns to present new recommendations.

The platform also said that AI could be employed to “identify potentially harmful content.”

Spotify has been increasingly pushing the adoption of AI to recommend content for its users. At the start of 2023, the platform debuted an AI DJ, which gives a lineup of music based on user preferences and provides information about the music using generative AI.

More recently, bloggers noticed parts of Spotify’s code including hints that it may soon introduce a new feature allowing users to generate playlists on the fly using AI and custom prompts.

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