Motorola’s Playlist Studio simply ruined Spotify’s algorithm for me

As a longtime Spotify person, there’s a lot that I like concerning the streaming big. It is aware of my music tastes higher than I do, and I begin shared jams nearly each time I hang around with my buddies. But, I typically discover myself somewhat pissed off and considerably bored by my fastidiously tuned algorithm — I just like the songs it picks, and it is aware of I like these songs, so it simply retains choosing the identical ones.

However now, there’s an AI-powered answer on the desk, and it comes from an sudden place. Motorola simply launched the playlist generator I’ve been ready for, and I believe it simply would possibly get me to rethink my relationship with Spotify. Right here’s why.

When OEMs determine it’s lastly time to enter the AI race, they appear to take action with a well-known set of options. There are nearly at all times instruments that can assist you write higher, hold you extra organized, and generate photos primarily based on prompts or images of your loved ones and buddies. Motorola isn’t any exception. It’s give you intelligent methods to take notes and voice recordings in your new Razr, and its Picture Studio falls proper within the candy spot between Google’s Pixel Studio and Samsung’s Portrait Studio.

Nevertheless, the characteristic that I believe folks will like to make use of most is the Playlist Studio. It’s loads like a picture generator in that you just feed it prompts and spit again creations, however as an alternative of a single picture (or a sequence of photos), you get a personalized playlist of round ten songs to stream and save.

Motorola’s go-to instance throughout our quick time with the Razr 2025 sequence was to ask for “Y2K pizza get together jams,” which could have been somewhat earlier than my time, but it surely’s onerous to argue with Beyonce’s Loopy in Love or Nelly’s Sizzling in Herre. I selected to not topic the briefing crowd to my most popular taste of unhappy music, however I absolutely plan to check the characteristic additional as soon as I’ve time to dig deeper into the Razr Extremely in my day-to-day life.

In fact, Motorola isn’t the primary to create an AI-powered playlist generator. Spotify debuted one thing related in beta testing in early 2024 for subscribers within the UK and Australia earlier than ultimately increasing it to different English-speaking international locations. I’ve since tried the characteristic (which stays in beta testing), and it really works fairly nicely. Nevertheless, it falls into the identical drawback that the majority of my different Spotify playlists undergo: It already is aware of my tastes too nicely.

For instance, I pulled up Spotify’s AI Playlists menu, requested for “unhappy songs that would slot in the woods,” and bought a playlist of 30 songs which might be nearly all on my Spotify-generated Moody Combine already, and I didn’t even need to ask for that one. I won’t get as many songs at one time on Motorola’s facet, however I’m weirdly grateful that the Playlist Studio goes in with out an concept of my style.

Sadly, there’s one sticking level to all of the neat issues I like about Motorola’s Playlist Studio: It solely works with Amazon Music. Sure, that music streaming service that sits in a distant third place behind Spotify and Apple Music by way of how many individuals I do know who use it. I’ve a premium subscription due to my ongoing Amazon Prime membership, however I don’t suppose I’ve ever touched the platform outdoors of the few weeks I exploit a Hearth pill every year.

So, meaning I both have to provide Amazon Music one other probability, belief Spotify to enhance its AI algorithm (my hopes aren’t excessive), or return and manually create every little thing that the Playlist Studio cooks up by hand. For now, I believe I’ll wind up doing the latter, because it permits me to maintain my current podcast subscriptions, preferred songs, and I’m already logged into Spotify on someplace close to 15 or 20 units — not that I’m pleased with that.

However truthfully, if Motorola actually needs to push folks to make use of its Playlist Studio — and I actually need to use its Playlist Studio — it should open the characteristic up a bit. Motorola packed its new Razrs with help for Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini, and its personal AI-powered options, so it ought to be capable of export playlists to Spotify and YouTube Music on the very least. When that day comes, I’ll be more than pleased to generate and share playlists till you’re sick of them — after which I’ll even share just a few extra.