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ZDNET’s key takeaways
Spotify launched a new Prompted Playlist feature on Thursday, which allows users to describe the type of playlist they’d like to hear, including emotions, pop culture references, feelings, and more, using natural language. The playlist generation also takes into account your listening history and current music trends to move away from automation and toward collaboration, according to Spotify.
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The feature was originally launched in beta in New Zealand in December 2025 and is now rolling out to Premium listeners in beta across the US and Canada by the end of January. To learn how to access it and how it worked for me, keep reading below.
My experience
Prompted Playlists is not to be confused with Spotify’s existing AI playlist; it’s meant to go a step beyond that, as it not only creates the playlist for you but keeps it updated and takes your listening history into account. Another unique feature is that you can choose whether to refresh the playlist daily, weekly, or not at all. You can even pick the day of the week that it refreshes.
Using it is fun and as straightforward as described. I tested it at my friend’s birthday party — a perfect opportunity, as I was on the AUX. Having just contributed to my friend’s playlist, I knew the vibe I was looking for and used that for the prompt.
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My prompt was: Can you create a playlist for a birthday party for my best friend who is turning 25. The vibes are songs that we would all know and can dance to, but it doesn’t have to be EDM necessarily. Some inspirations are Sabrina Carpenter, Tate McRae, and Charli XCX.
Within seconds, Spotify created a playlist with a cover, title, and description that fulfilled my prompt criteria pretty well. Many of the songs on this playlist were already on the playlist my friends and I had curated originally.
In practice, I found it to be similar to the Spotify ChatGPT integration, which lets you describe what you want your playlist to sound like. However, again, the ChatGPT integration lacks the aforementioned updating and personalization options that would take the curation a step forward, in theory.
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Do I think this will replace the human playlist curating experience? No, because music is so deeply personal. Even if Prompted Playlists understands and pulls from your listening history, it may not know the memories or feelings you associate with each song. That said, I do think it’s a really helpful starting point for inspiration, or perhaps if you are in a rush and don’t want to take the chance on a completely random playlist.
Try it yourself
Once you are granted access to the feature, you just need to tap the (+) on the bottom right within the Spotify app and select Prompted Playlist. Then you can describe what you want to hear and click generate. If you don’t know where to start, it gives you prompts you can copy and paste.
Source: www.zdnet.com
