Spotify is testing a new way to discover music — one that finally lets listeners talk back to the algorithm.
The feature is called Prompted Playlists, and it launches this week in New Zealand as a limited beta. Instead of waiting for Spotify to guess what you might like, you can now type a prompt — a vibe, a genre, a mood, a moment — and the AI builds a playlist around it.
Think Discover Weekly, but rewritten every time you type a sentence.
Spotify says prompts can be simple (“chill piano”) or wildly specific (“tracks that sound like wandering through a neon-lit arcade at 2AM”). The system blends your request with your past listening patterns, producing a playlist that can also auto-refresh based on the same prompt.
It’s the clearest sign yet that Spotify wants recommendation systems to feel less like a black box and more like a tool you actually steer.
The move also follows a trend across tech: platforms are being pushed to make their algorithms explainable — or at least more obedient. Instagram recently added controls so users can tell the feed what they want more of. Spotify’s own AI DJ got an update earlier this year that lets listeners guide it with voice prompts.
Prompted Playlists extends that logic. You type. It listens. The playlist adapts.
For years, power users have tried to “train” Spotify by skipping songs or building hyper-specific playlists. Prompted Playlists makes that dance unnecessary. You no longer have to reverse-engineer the algorithm. You can just tell it what to do.
If Spotify rolls this out globally, it could shift how artists surface on the platform. That’s because prompt-based discovery puts more weight on user intention instead of passive data patterns. When listeners directly describe what they want, the recommendation engine has less room to wander into generic territory.
There’s still plenty we don’t know. Spotify hasn’t shared global release timing. It hasn’t said how often auto-refresh cycles run or whether they can be customized. Those details will matter — especially for users who treat playlists like living documents.
For now, New Zealand gets the first look. But the feature feels too aligned with Spotify’s long-term personalization strategy to stay regional for long.
AI-powered curation is no longer about predicting your taste. It’s about partnering with it. And Prompted Playlists could be the moment where Spotify finally lets users shape the machine that has shaped their listening for years.