YouTube Tests AI Music Hosts in Bid to Rival Spotify’s Dominance
Alphabet's YouTube Music is stepping into the AI arena with its new 'Beyond the Beat' feature, an experimental AI host that narrates curated playlists. The move mirrors Spotify's 2022 AI DJ launch—a tool that saw NEAR 100% usage growth last year. Both platforms now vie for listener engagement through algorithmic personalization, though YouTube's rollout remains limited to a U.S. user subset.
The feature surfaces as a discrete sparkle icon, allowing users to toggle commentary that appears sparingly—once every five tracks—to minimize disruption. Early-stage imperfections are acknowledged, reflecting the iterative nature of such AI implementations in streaming ecosystems.