Spotify Faces Backlash for AI-Generated Wrapped Features

Spotify is the latest brand to face criticism for using generative AI in its highly anticipated end-of-year campaign, Wrapped, released yesterday (Dec. 4).

Disgruntled users took to TikTok, X, and Reddit to air their grievances with the campaign’s AI-powered features, calling the music streamer “lazy” and saying the work “flopped” for its lackluster design and removal of specific information, like users’ top music genres.

It also did away with Sound Towns, a feature rolled out in 2023 that matched listeners to geographic locations based on their streaming habits. 

Instead, the music streaming platform added new AI-powered features, like Your Music Evolution, where based on their listening history, users received up to three descriptors to reveal “the musical phases that uniquely defined your year.”

Spotify used machine learning with human curation to pinpoint words and genres based on user data like time spent listening to an artist or genre and peak listening months.

“No top genres, no location for music styles, and the genres on like 3 months are random words tossed together,” wrote a Reddit user.