YouTube Music Introduces New AI-Powered Station Functionality, Similar to Spotify's Smart Playlists

YouTube Music Introduces New AI-Powered Station Functionality, Similar to Spotify’s Smart Playlists

With AI being the latest hot buzzword, everyone is looking to integrate AI to some degree to their own apps and services. Streaming music services have been looking for ways to leverage generative AI, and now YouTube Music is joining the fray.

YouTube Music is adding a handful of new features that should be able to greatly improve your music recommendation experience. First off, there’s a new AI-generated conversational radio is currently being tested with select Premium users in the United States. This feature allows users to create personalized radio stations by simply describing their desired music, such as “catchy pop choruses” or “upbeat pop anthems.” This reminds us a bit of what Spotify is doing with AI technology—not only do we have a personal DJ that will vibe with you and your personal music likes, but there’s also a playlist generator that will generate a playlist for you when you write a prompt of what you’re looking for.

The second feature is a Shazam-like song recognition tool, now available to all iOS and Android users. This tool goes beyond Shazam’s capabilities, enabling users to identify songs not only by playing them but also by humming, singing, or even playing parts of the song on an instrument. It’s actually pretty similar (if not identical) to what Google Search already includes with its microphone button. However, integrating it into YouTube Music makes it more visible to people who might actually be looking for it, since most people probably don’t think to use Google Search for music.

While the AI radio feature is still in its experimental phase, YouTube has indicated plans to expand its availability to more users in the future. If you want to see if you have these features yet, you might want to update your app.

Source: TechCrunch