YoI’m listening to Radiohead’s Creep on the radio. “You may not know this,” the DJ coos condescendingly, “but this song turns 30 this year.” So far, a little trivia about FM drive time. The only difference is that this DJ is not a real person.
AI DJ is the next step in Spotify’s relentless goal to “personalize” our listening experiences. Like its new Discover Weekly music playlist, or its Wrapped year-end roundup, AI DJ curates a sequence of songs it thinks I’ll like based on my listening history. Along with the tunes, I get streams of “commentary” from a male AI voice, bursting with the forced friendliness of an overinvested high school guidance counselor.
The feature is currently rolling out, so you may have already noticed it in your Spotify app. Like most of this year, it’s made with OpenAI, a chatbot known for its distinctively human and sometimes quite creepy responses. Spotify’s music editors also give the feature a boost, as they’re the ones who write the fun facts that the voice gives you every few songs. “With this generative AI tool, our publishers can scale their innate knowledge in ways never before possible,” said a press release.
“Let’s keep this vibe going,” the voice says as I skim through the following songs: Television’s Marquee Moon, The Slits’ Typical Girls and Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle. I learn that robots like to rock daddy.
While my listening session’s sweet-spoken guide isn’t a real person, she’s based on one: Xavier “X” Jernigan. He is Spotify’s director of cultural partnerships and host of The Get Up podcast, a daily morning pop culture show that also provides listeners with a “personalized playlist.”
According to a Spotify press release“[Jernigan’s] personality and voice resonated with our listeners” well enough for him to land the gig as the “first blueprint for the DJ”. But more options could emerge in the future, the brand noted.
I liked the voice, even if it sounded like a stalker. “I know what you hear, so I’m going to be here every day,” she told me, a little threatening. and so? is It’s kind of scary how much the AI DJ knows about me.
At the touch of a button, you’re launched into a “look back at 2018,” but not the songs that came out that year: the songs Yo listened. It starts playing three Celine Dion anthems that I played non-stop during a particularly indulgent time in my life. When I get a weather alert about a blizzard coming up, it switches to my “favorite summer traffic jams” from years past.
Was this “personalization”? I felt like the AI DJ was less picking songs from his digital crystal ball of predictions and mostly just playing songs he had heard before. He was also happy to offer songs supposedly “picked just for me” by his editors: indie and R&B playlists that seemed to promote new releases.
It’s hard to imagine who exactly this feature is for. The app’s promo videos brand it as something of a custom box digger offering deep cuts and commentary. But I assume those seeking human curation will continue to listen to, well, real radio (or perhaps compete with Apple Music’s version of “curated” services, which draws on experts like Ebro Darden, Zane Lowe, and Elton John as alternatives to the algorithms).
For the most part, the AI DJ wants to please me. When I touch a button to change the genre, I get a friendly: “Don’t you like it? I got you.” There’s no waiting for a song I like to get into rotation, like I do with the FM station in my car. It’s effortless. But after a while, the AI DJ starts talking to me less and less Soon, it just lets me know which artist is on deck, I wonder why I need it at all.
After 30 minutes, I realize I’m only listening to my most played songs. I’ve heard them thousands of times. I turn off AI DJ and search for a new album I haven’t listened to yet.
