Spotify Partners With Google Cloud for Podcasts and Audiobooks

Spotify and Google Cloud have announced plans to utilize Google Cloud’s AI tools to enhance content discovery and provide personalized recommendations for Spotify’s audio content.

According to The Verge, “With this latest move, Spotify is using Google Cloud’s LLMs (large language models) to analyze the roughly 5 million podcasts and 350,000 audiobooks in its content library with a goal of trying to ‘augment’ the metadata, according to a press release.”

Google Cloud is not a new name to Spotify, with the latter choosing Google’s cloud infrastructure as its sole cloud provider. As reported by Protocol in 2021, the two tech companies have been collaborating on several service offerings, and this latest endeavor is a continuation of their established partnership.

The Swedish music streaming platform has always been at the forefront of harnessing the power of AI. A decade ago, they pioneered the usage of AI for their music recommendation algorithms, revolutionizing the way we discover and listen to music. Today, Spotify has been exploring numerous ways to enhance its revenue streams. As part of these efforts, the company is focusing on expanding its portfolio of revenue-generating formats. Podcasts and audiobooks have become central to this expansion strategy, and the company sees significant potential in these formats.

Furthermore, Spotify previously assured its stakeholders of high-margin returns from its ambitious investment in the podcast and audiobook sectors. By infusing AI into these segments, Spotify is on a mission to replicate the success it achieved with music, fostering a more personalized and engaging user experience across all forms of audio entertainment.

“We’re excited to continue building on the strong and trusted foundation we have established with Google Cloud. The evolution of our technology has been matched by Google Cloud’s commitment to building the best possible platform for our products to run on and driving further innovation with the emerging capabilities of generative AI.”

Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s chief product and technology officer, via PR Newswire

The main focus of this collaboration is the application of Google Cloud’s AI tools to refine Spotify’s personalized recommendations. By leveraging AI, Spotify aims to offer a more tailored and enjoyable experience to its users when they are browsing through podcasts and audiobooks.

Earlier in the year, Spotify introduced an AI feature for songs, dubbed “AI DJ,” which leverages OpenAI’s generative AI models to churn out custom playlists. This feature, however, has garnered mixed reviews from users. Importantly, Spotify’s move to use AI for spoken audio discovery shouldn’t be seen as an isolated feature like AI DJ — rather, it signals the company’s serious commitment to upgrading user experience across its non-music content offerings.