Spotify’s current AI bet is about being the music service that agents choose

Spotify reported a strong third quarter with 788 million monthly active users and nearly €5 billion in revenue. On its earnings call, co-CEO Gustav Söderström explained that Spotify is well-positioned for the "agentic age" because agents excel at replacing chores, not entertainment. Rather than opening Spotify directly, listeners could ask AI assistants to build playlists, find podcasts, or resume audiobooks. Spotify wants to be the service those agents turn to, enabling discovery and interaction through conversation. It was the first music service to integrate with Meta’s Muse assistant and also integrates with ChatGPT and Claude. Söderström said Spotify is "leaning in" to agent growth, seeing good adoption inside these agents. He noted that some platforms, like Amazon, have blocked Meta’s Muse from shopping, highlighting potential friction over third-party agent access. Spotify’s pitch also emphasizes personalization: Söderström described Spotify as an agent itself that users can talk to and instruct, capable of complex tasks like analyzing listening history back to 2008, remixing songs by tempo and key, and creating a running playlist at a specific cadence. Spotify’s years of listening data enable more personal recommendations than a generic AI assistant. Söderström stressed that Spotify does not send listener data to partners; instead, agents request something from Spotify, which uses its own systems to reason and choose what to play.

(Source：TechCrunch)