Spotify’s on-Demand Playlists Feature Is Finally Coming to the US.
Last month, Spotify announced ” Curated Playlists ,” a new feature the company claimed would allow users to “control the algorithm.” It was a bold, if somewhat vague, claim, but it was underpinned by the beloved tech trend of the past three years: artificial intelligence. The gist was that Spotify would allow subscribers to leverage the company’s AI models to more effectively manage their listening experience, provided they resided in New Zealand—a very small fraction of Spotify’s massive user base.
Luckily for those in the US and Canada, the Suggested Playlist feature is expanding to North America. Spotify announced the news today, January 21st: Premium subscribers in all three countries can now access this feature if they want to hand over playlist management to Spotify’s machine learning models.
What is a “Cue Playlist”?
Prompted Playlist is Spotify’s AI-powered tool that lets you create custom playlists using natural language. The idea is that instead of searching for songs to add to a playlist, you tell Spotify’s AI what you want to listen to, and it automatically adds songs. This can include genres and existing songs, as well as ideas, more detailed descriptions, and, so to speak, a mood.
To see what I mean, here are some suggestions Spotify offers you to try:
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“Make me a playlist of songs I’ve saved to my library (playlists or favorites) that I’ve either never heard or only heard once. The goal is to collect songs I discovered, saved, and then completely forgot to listen to. Give me a chance to finally hear what I’ve been missing.”
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“What tracks did I listen to first on Spotify? Order them from the very first track I listened to—with date and time—and continue in that order.”
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“Knowing what I’m listening to today, make me a playlist of songs from 2016 that fit my current tastes, mixing the most popular tracks from that year with songs that now seem timeless.”
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“Make me a playlist that will help me learn Spanish, with clear vocals and easy-to-understand lyrics. Mix popular Spanish songs with slower tracks to make the lyrics easier to hear, and include music that reflects different Spanish-speaking cultures to make the playlist more interesting.”
Spotify claims that the “On-Demand Playlist” feature also takes your existing listening history into account. While you and your friend can ask Spotify’s AI the same question, theoretically, each of you should receive different playlists, as the AI will make adjustments based on your likes and dislikes. You also don’t have to guess why the AI included a particular song in the playlist: each track begins with a “brief explanation” explaining why Spotify chose it. This can be either informative or downright annoying.
The thing is, Spotify already launched a similar feature, aptly called ” AI-Powered Playlist .” Lifehacker’s David Nield wrote about it in September 2024, and after reviewing that information, I realized it was quite similar to “Suggested Playlist.” In fact, AI-Powered Playlist isn’t going anywhere after the launch of “Suggested Playlist”: Spotify told me they’re two separate features, the main differences being that “Suggested Playlist” takes into account your entire Spotify listening history, starting with your first song, as well as real-time information about “trends, charts, culture, and history” in the industry today. You can also schedule playlists to update daily or weekly, which isn’t possible with “AI-Powered Playlist.”
In my opinion, the Prompted Playlist feature is also designed to handle more complex queries. While the company advertised AI Playlist as a way to create playlists based on queries like “upbeat pop music for my commute,” the queries it suggests in Prompted Playlist are much more complex and involve multiple layers of instructions for the AI. This may be partly a result of the technology’s improvements over the past year and a half.
How to try Spotify’s Curated Playlist feature
The Curated Playlist feature will only be available to Premium subscribers, so if you don’t have a paid Spotify subscription, you unfortunately won’t be able to use it. If you have a Premium account, you’ll need to go to the Spotify website, click “Create,” and then select “Curated Playlist.”
As explained above, here you can describe the type of playlist you want the tool to create. Here you can set how often it will be updated (if at all). If you’re not satisfied with the results, you can select “Edit Query” to make adjustments. You can share the playlist with friends, but keep in mind that Spotify will adjust the playlist based on their listening history.