I was really excited to try out Spotify's new AI DJ feature. And then it opened its mouth.
Last week, Spotify announced a new feature called "DJ," a new listening mode that not only selects songs it thinks you will want to hear but uses AI to actually generate a DJ-like voice to stitch these songs together into your own personalized radio show. It's the sort of idea that really piques my interest as a music fan; we're running out of space to innovate in the format music is delivered now that we've settled on streaming, so it's really cool when companies try to find new experiences they can offer within the confines of streaming itself. But after playing around with it for almost an hour, I can confidently say I have no interest in using it again in its current state.
To be a good DJ you have to offer at least one of three things: context, companionship, or taste. When you offer good context, you help listeners develop a deeper appreciation for the music they're listening to by coloring in some of the details that give the piece more dimension: how it was recorded, why it was written, where it fits into the artist's catalog, etc. When you offer good companionship, you make every solo commuter feel like they've got a friend in the passenger seat. You reintroduce this idea of music as a communal experience even in the loneliest environment. And when you offer good taste, you help everyone else find more great music to fall in love with.
I don't think Spotify's DJ is particularly good at any of these. They touted the feature would offer up "insightful facts about the music, artists, or genres you’re listening to," but it never once did this for me, so it fails on context. I was hoping the vocal interludes between tracks would be a comforting little sprinkle of AI friendship, but instead it came off more like DJ Khaled whispering sweet generic nothings in your ear every four songs, so it fails on companionship. And while its "personalization technology" chose fine songs to play, it didn't seem any better than the recommendations given by late-2000s Pandora.
And it's all a shame because radio shows are still a really awesome format for sharing music for all the reasons I described above. There are a number of shows on Apple Music — The Matt Wilkinson Show, The Zane Lowe Show, Elton John's Rocket Hour — that I listen to all the time. But Spotify's AI DJ left a bitter enough taste in my mouth that after 45 minutes I ran back to Apple Music to hear an actual show again. And I'm not looking back.
I still have faith Spotify can improve this feature enough to make it an enjoyable gimmick at worst or truly incremental to the listening experience at best. The fact set on each song will continue to grow, and the AI will continue learning to speak in less and less generic terms. But the truth is playlists are still fine. People don't generally have a problem with them. I doubt very many people have ever thought, "Yeah, playlists are cool, but they'd be way cooler if a grammatically sanitized robot spoke between every fourth song." And this new feature won't convince them otherwise.
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