YouTube’s New AI Tool Will Create Custom Radio Stations for You
YouTube’s tool uses artificial intelligence to create customized radio stations for you , an eagle-eyed Reddit user spotted over the holiday weekend. While the company hasn’t made any public mention of the feature, Redditor kater_pro came across it while browsing the YouTube Music app, which could mean the feature is only being tested with a limited number of users at the moment. This claim is supported by the “Experimentation” tag seen in kater_pro’s screenshots, so there is currently no timetable for when (or if) this feature will become available to the general public.
According to kater_pro, when this feature is activated, a small text field appears on the user’s screen with the words “Request music in any way convenient for you.” Kater_pro said that they asked for “weird hip-hop beats” in the box; AI created a radio station with songs from Janelle Monae, Lil Nas X and RuPaul. The station’s description reads: “Rhymes and flows from the heart, a celebration of weird pride in the art of hip-hop.” It’s a little awkward to say so, but okay.
It looks like you can customize your AI-generated stations on the fly, as there’s a small chat box at the bottom of the interface with a series of suggestions above it, prompting the user to search for anything from “Upbeat pop anthems” to “Upbeat pop anthems” ” Moscow rock scene.” Users can either type or speak their answers.
The feature is similar to Spotify’s existing ” AI DJ ” feature, as well as a third-party app for Spotify and Apple Music called PlaylistAI. This is a more convenient way to get AI help with music than getting text recommendations from ChatGPT, although the jury is still out on whether it will be better than more standard recommendation features like Discover Weekly.
Kater_pro hasn’t specified whether they are paid subscribers, so it’s unclear whether this feature will be locked behind a paywall or not (although this has been the case with YouTube’s previous AI features ).