Spotify is adding new personalization features to Discover Weekly, a popular and influential playlist listened to by millions of users. The playlist, which is updated regularly, now features buttons for genres such as pop, R&B, and funk, allowing users to tell Spotify what they want to hear more of.
The Discover Weekly playlist is one of Spotify’s most interesting new features: the company claims that songs from this playlist have been listened to more than 100 billion times. The weekly mixtape, created using Spotify’s algorithms, promised to introduce users to new music they might like by extracting it from listener data. But recently, there have been complaints that Discover Weekly playlists designed to find new music spit out the same songs, and that the platform’s systems inaccurately categorize genres. (In May, Spotify told Business Insider that it had updated the accuracy of genre identification and the Discover Weekly recommendation algorithm.) In addition to the genre options, the Discover Weekly playlist is getting a refreshed look with different covers.
Spotify has changed the way people listen to music by prioritizing the playlist over the album or even the artist: playlists have become a battleground for labels and artists looking to make a name for themselves. Over the past few years, the music platform has gone even further in personalization, tailoring playlists to the individual user. The company has introduced features such as an AI “DJ,” an AI playlist creation tool, and even a fake podcast with fake AI hosts discussing users’ music listening habits. The ability to more closely manage Discover Weekly’s offerings suggests that hyper-personalization remains a priority – and perhaps Spotify is aware of some user dissatisfaction.
