Ask HN: Anyone tried Spotify's AI DJ feature? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone tried Spotify's AI DJ feature?

Hi folks, Spotify has been rolling out an AI-powered DJ feature for a little while now. It’s available to Premium users, but I don’t have access to it here in France yet.

I’m curious: - Has anyone here actually used Spotify’s AI DJ? - What’s the experience like compared to regular playlists? - Does the AI voice/commentary add value or get irritating? - How good are the recommendations and adaptability to your taste? - Any standout strengths or obvious limitations you’ve noticed?

Would love honest feedback from those who’ve tested it. Thanks!

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> Does the AI voice/commentary add value or get irritating?

I could only handle it for about 2 seconds before I turned it off. This feature is a joke.

More broadly, there is clearly some obsession in Spotify's leadership with pushing anything vocal into listeners ears. This "DJ" feature is just a zero-effort extension of this. I still can't figure out why they are so obsessed with this. Perhaps there is some kind of correlation between tracks with affordable royalties and shitty vocal samples. I encourage anyone who is confused by my little rant to locate something like an instrumental-only EDM playlist on Spotify right now. You'll probably make it 2-3 tracks in before you get lit up with precisely the opposite of what you had requested.

Thanks for your feedback! So even the AI recommendations aren't that useful? To be honest, none of these feature are live in France so I'm still using my good old tricks to create a playlist...

I like it, I listen to it frequently. it often surfaces music that I forgot about that I had on repeat a while ago, kind of like a discover weekly but with a higher density of... certified bangers, and fewer skips.

the voice and "personality" of DJ X is annoying but it's infrequent enough that I can live with it. my only gripe is that in longer sessions, he tends to play music I have no interest in, e.g. "what's hot right now" - my library is 10k+, I would have hoped he wouldn't run out of material and resort to current top 10 country or something.

Got it. Thanks! Are you more in a leanback listening mode or do you have stronger expectations when it comes tu music curation by the AI?

I'm probably more of an active listener most of the time, where I'll alt-tab or hotkey or whatever to skip or change playlist if I'm not vibing. I'd want super high quality playlist curation in terms of taste and variety if I were to listen to an AI DJ/generated playlist. I like Spotify's new mix feature, been using that with my own playlists and have been enjoying that so far.

When I heard "AI DJ" I got excited for beat matching/mixing. But this is really just a "Discover Mix" with an annoying AI voice to interrupt. Not sure why they felt it necessary to replicate the most annoying part of a radio DJ (talking).

Sounds like I'm looking for two other products: Party Mode (2015) and Auto-Mixing Testing (2018)

We do have the spotify mix option as a beta option in France but it is quite annoying... I definitely prefer DJ pro engine mix when it comes to auto mixing. Thanks for your feeback!

I went through the setup where you specify what genre of music you want. It promptly played two top-ten pop songs, which is definitely not what I selected. I've never used it again.

Fair point — sometimes we build high expectations around a product that turns out to be just… okay. Thanks for sharing!

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