Spotify wants AI assistants to use Spotify for music requests

In short: Spotify says AI assistants may soon handle more music searching and playlist building, and Spotify wants those assistants to choose Spotify.

What's going on

Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström told investors that the company is preparing for a future where people ask AI agents for entertainment. An AI agent is a helper that can take actions for you, like a digital assistant that not only answers questions but also does tasks.

Instead of opening the Spotify app and hunting for the right song or playlist, a person might say, “Play something upbeat for my run,” or “Find a podcast about what we just talked about.” Spotify’s goal is to make sure those assistants connect to Spotify to fulfill the request, even if the person never opens Spotify directly.

Spotify pointed to early integrations, including being the first music service to work with Meta’s Muse assistant. Spotify also works inside other popular AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, according to the company.

Spotify reported it ended the third quarter with 788 million monthly active users and nearly €5 billion in revenue. Söderström argued that entertainment is different from chores, because people still want to listen to songs rather than have them summarized.

He also said Spotify is not sending listeners’ personal listening history to AI partners. Instead, the agent asks Spotify for something, and Spotify uses its own systems to pick what to play.

What to watch

A key question is whether big platforms will allow outside AI agents to freely use their services. TechCrunch noted that Amazon has blocked Meta’s Muse from shopping on Amazon, showing that access, privacy, and business control could lead to more lockouts. If that happens, music and other media companies may need more deals and clearer rules for how these assistants can connect.

Source: TechCrunch AI