For the first time, Spotify is giving users the power to steer the algorithm. Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s Co-President, CPO, and CTO, shares the vision behind Prompted Playlists, and how a new era of listener control is taking shape.
Spotify is entering its next chapter, and it felt worth pausing for a moment to look at how far we’ve come and what comes next. With 713 million listeners, 90% of whom say Spotify is essential to their day, we’re standing on the edge of something big. Equally important is our dedication to delivering real innovation and growth for the artists who leverage the power of Spotify to connect with their fans.
That means pushing ourselves again. Stretching the boundaries of what listening can be. And moving into a new era: one that gives you – the user – more control than ever before.
The next evolution of your Spotify
From the start, we’ve tried to make listening feel personal. You’ve seen that in Discover Weekly and Release Radar, which quietly predict what you might love. You’ve also seen it in the tools that let you shape and refresh your own playlists with precision, such as Smart Shuffle, Playlist song suggestions, and Mixing Tools.
But now we’re entering a moment where you don’t just listen to Spotify, you control it.
Imagine a Spotify that doesn’t just passively learn from you but literally listens to you. One you can steer and shape with your own words. For the first time, your ideas, your logic, and your creativity can actually power the Spotify algorithm, directing how it thinks, adapts, and responds to you.
Introducing Prompted Playlist, where your words bring your playlist to life
Starting December 11, Premium listeners in New Zealand will get early access to our latest beta feature: Prompted Playlist. It’s the first feature that puts control of the algorithm and the broader Spotify experience directly in your hands.
Prompted Playlists let you describe exactly what you want to hear and set the rules for your personalized playlist. And unlike anything before it, this feature taps into your entire Spotify listening history, all the way back to day one. Each playlist reflects not only what you love today, but the full arc of your taste. Spotify then curates and keeps it fresh based on your listening patterns and world knowledge.
You could ask for “music from my top artists from the last five years,” then push it further with “and feature deep cuts I haven’t heard yet.” Or you could request “high-energy pop and hip-hop for a 30-minute 5K run that keeps a steady pace before easing into relaxing songs for a cool-down,” and layer on something like “include music from this year’s biggest films and most-talked-about TV shows that match my taste.” You choose how broad or specific you want to go.
You can fine-tune the results by editing the prompt, or start fresh whenever you want. And for each song, we’ll include descriptions and context that tell you the story behind the recommendation so the playlist feels alive and crafted specifically for your prompt and your taste.
You can also set it to refresh daily or weekly so your playlist always stays new and in sync with your world. Consider this your chance to curate your next Discover Weekly, exactly the way you want it. Need a little help getting started? Tap “Ideas” to pick from prompts like “songs from artists who are headlining major tours right now,” and get a playlist tailored to your taste.
For even more inspiration, our music editors and culture experts have crafted a set of fun and inventive prompts and English language algorithms that will show up as personalized playlists on Home. And because this is a beta, the experience will evolve as we scale to more listeners. We’re excited to see what we learn along the way.
Why it matters
We believe that technology is only as good as the humans behind it. Spotify listeners have created nearly 9 billion playlists, which is proof that human curation is still the heartbeat of the platform. But until now, unless you were a developer at Spotify and could write your own playlist algorithm, your best ideas might have stayed in your head.
Prompted Playlist brings those ideas to life using just the English language. There’s no longer a tradeoff between control and convenience. You finally get both.
And for artists, this unlocks smarter, more inspired discovery, surfacing their music for the right listeners and opening new ways to deepen their fan bases.
What’s next: More control for you
This new feature is part of a broader shift in how we think about personalization and what we think consumers will expect from their services in the future. Our goal is to make Spotify more personal, more responsive, more intelligent, and more aware of the world and culture around it, in order to bring greater value to listeners, artists, and creators.
This is just the beginning of a new phase where listeners take the lead and make even more of every minute.
2026 is going to be epic for fans and artists alike. We can’t wait to share what’s coming next. Stay tuned.
