How can Spotify benefit from NLP?

Spotify is a much-loved music app enjoyed by over 515 million users every month. The personalization features are a major draw towards the platform, as users can easily listen to their favorite tunes whilst discovering new music suggested to them by Spotify’s advanced AI. 

By further incorporating natural language processing (NLP), Spotify could take this music personalisation to the next level.

What is NLP?

Natural language processing (NLP) is a machine learning technology that allows computers to interpret and understand human language. The technology already has widespread adoption in many industries, such as within search engines and for virtual assistants.

How does Spotify currently use AI?

Spotify utilizes AI in various innovative ways, helping to enhance user experience with built-in, streamlined tools and features. 

• DJ X was launched in February 2023, using generative AI from OpenAI to provide a personal DJ to Spotify users, offering personalized music curation and commentary based on a user’s listening habits. 
• Spotify Radio generates endless playlists based on a particular song, artist or genre, helping users to find new music similar to the tunes they already love. 
• The search function already utilizes NLP to help users find songs, artists and playlists from vague or partial search queries.

Adding NLP into the playlist creation toolkit

Playlists are one of the most popular features of Spotify. At present, there are three primary ways of adding songs to a playlist, these being:

Manually adding songs

Spotify offers a variety of ways to manually add songs to playlists, including the ability to add entire albums to an existing playlist.

Collaborative playlists

Users can invite their friends to collaborate on creating shared playlists.

AI recommendations

At the bottom of all playlists is a “Recommended Songs”. This works by suggesting similar songs to the ones included in the playlist, helping users to find new music that is likely to be to their taste.

The future: A chatbot that can create playlists

NLP-powered chatbot solutions are becoming increasingly commonplace across the web, providing the capability for personalized round-the-clock support to user queries.

When applied to a music-based app such as Spotify, an NLP chatbot could be trained to assist with specific queries such as:

“Create a two hour smooth jazz playlist, suitable to play at a dinner party”

Or

“Make me a playlist of tunes similar to Bohemian Rhapsody but don’t include any songs I have already listened to before”

By harnessing the power of natural language processing, Spotify could allow users to generate playlists based on written commands, rather than just listening habits. 

By doing so, users would have a greater degree of control over the suggestions being made to them, helping to further personalize their listening experience.

The primary benefits of a playlist-generating chatbot would be:

• Enable users to find truly new music, without the need for previous listening habits
• Tailor playlists to specific requirements such as a desired length of time 
• Endless playlist customization available

Is it feasible?

Yes, a chatbot that can suggest and curate playlists from textual instructions is certainly feasible. 

NetGeist offers custom solutions involving NLP and personalized chatbots. If you have an idea of how NLP could help your organization, get in touch.