Spotify Wrapped leaves some listeners wanting more
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This year's Spotify Wrapped left some listeners wanting more and wondering if artificial intelligence was used to create their personalized roundups.
The big picture: Spotify has been making investments in AI as it anticipates its first full profitable year yet, a testament to its cost-cutting efforts, which has included layoffs, and its push to grow paid memberships.
- The company introduced a new AI feature this year called Your Spotify Wrapped AI podcast and enhanced its existing AI DJ and AI Playlist.
- "Through the combination of Spotify's powerful personalization technology and generative AI, we've created hyper-personalized Wrapped experiences that connect millions of listeners worldwide with the music and audio they love," the company said Wednesday.
Yes, but: Spotify did not use Generative AI in creating users' 2024 Wrapped data results, nor for the creative design.
- Each users Wrapped experience was developed based on their listening history and consumption for the year, a Spotify spokesperson told Axios.
State of play: Some users took to social media to express dissatisfaction with this year's Wrapped, saying they felt the results inaccurate and the graphics disappointing.
- Many also noticed popular result categories were missing, including information on users' top genres and albums, as well as Sound Town that matched users with cities based on their top artists and genres.
Zoom in: "Spotify Wrapped is a bit…underwhelming this year," Nia Johnson wrote on X. "Less unconventional data viz moments like in previous years (like the city matches, zodiac signs, etc). It was all very obvious."
- "Spotify wrapped has lost what made it so dynamic in the first place," Gloria Alamrew wrote on X. "The city mapping and zodiac sign integration etc made it fun and immersive. Which is really to say that PEOPLE make things better. Those layoffs are showing. And so is the AI."
- Sydney Brown said on TikTok that her Spotify Wrapped didn't feel accurate this year and that she's "floored" by the songs that appeared in her top five. "I don't think I've listened to those songs since like June or July," she added.
What they're saying: "When you look at Spotify Wrapped over the years, we're always trying to incorporate new elements, and give fans what they're asking for," a Spotify spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
- "When we're serving up a personalized experience to millions of fans, we're aware that there will always be social discourse."
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