How Spotify Created Its First AI DJ

variety.com:

Rachel Seo For Spotify, the creation of its artificial intelligence DJ — which launched in beta version for Premium subscribers in the U.S.

and Canada on Feb. 22 — represents the culmination of what the company has been working toward for years. “This has always been a north star,” Ziad Sultan, the vice president of personalization at Spotify, tells Variety.

The DJ serves as a curator, analyzing user activity to play songs that it knows users already like and offering recommendations for new music.

It also provides commentary and background context on the tracks and artists it plays. Playlists like Discover Weekly, which feeds recommendations to users based on their listening activity, or Spotify Wrapped, which pulls together users’ most-streamed songs at the end of the year, mimic some of the AI DJ’s functionality, but the newly debuted product serves as the embodiment for what Sultan says had been a “metaphor” for the company until now.