AI features are expanding to all kinds of apps, and it's getting difficult to find a service that hasn't embraced AI. Lately, AI playlists in music apps have been growing in popularity, and it's plausible that we'll see Apple adopt the trend in the near future.
YouTube
This week, YouTube Music started rolling out a new AI playlist feature. YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscribers can turn an idea, mood, or genre into a personalized playlist.
There's an option in the Library section of the YouTube Music app to create an AI playlist, where you can ask for or type any genre, artist, feeling, phrase, or other suggestion to get a custom playlist suggestion.
Spotify
In January, Spotify started an expanded test of a "Prompted Playlist" feature that uses AI to generate music suggestions based on a text-based request.
Spotify Premium users can describe what they want to hear, and the AI looks at listening history, current trends, and charts to create song suggestions that fit the parameters. AI playlists are kept up to date and refreshed as listening patterns change.
Spotify says users can ask for things like "music from my top artists from the last five years," then expand on that with a follow-up request like "and feature deep cuts I haven't heard yet." Requests can also cover specific activities and time periods, such as "high-energy pop and hip-hop for a 30-minute 5K run that keeps a steady pace before easing into relaxing songs for a cool-down."
AI playlists from Spotify can be tweaked with prompt edits, and set to refresh daily or weekly with new music.
Spotify's Prompted Playlists are an expansion of a prior playlist-generating feature that let users ask for songs based on mood and activity. Prompted Playlists can be much more specific and detailed.
Amazon Music
Since 2024, Amazon's music service has offered "Maestro," a feature that lets users build playlists using text-based prompts and emoji characters. It's a lot like the YouTube and Spotify options, with Amazon describing it as a feature that helps users create any playlist they can think of.
Apple Music Rumors
Apple has used AI to generate custom "For You" playlists for Apple Music users for years, but there isn't an option to type in a prompt and get a customized playlist in response.
Last year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that Apple was working on an Apple Music reboot focused around AI. We did get a new AutoMix feature that more seamlessly transitions between songs, and updated lyrics translation features, but no option to generate AI playlists and no specific Apple Intelligence features.
More of Apple's apps are expected to adopt Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27, so it's possible we'll get new AI Apple Music features. Apple is now one of the only major streaming music services that does not offer prompt-based AI playlist creation.
In the meantime, there is an option to generate Apple Music playlists using ChatGPT. ChatGPT is able to integrate with Apple Music, so it can make music recommendations and playlists based on user prompts. ChatGPT can search the Apple Music catalog, but it does not have access to listening history, which limits the personalization of any playlist suggestions. Playlists also need to be manually added to Apple Music.
A native AI playlist feature in Apple Music would be much more akin to what Spotify and YouTube are offering.
