YouTube Music has launched AI-generated playlists for Premium subscribers on iOS and Android. The feature, announced this week via an update from YouTube’s official channels, allows paying users to create personalised playlists using a simple text or voice prompt. There is no confirmation yet on when or if it will roll out to desktop.
The tool is powered by Google’s Gemini AI and is available now to YouTube Music Premium subscribers.
How To Create An AI Playlist On YouTube Music
Creating an AI playlist follows a short in-app process:
- Open the Library tab
- Tap “New”
- Select “AI playlist”
- Enter a text or voice description
Users can request playlists by mood, genre, activity or specific artists. Examples include “death metal”, “sad post rock”, “house mix for a chill party” or “90s Bollywood classic hits”. The system then generates a custom playlist within seconds.
Google has not outlined any formal limitations around prompts, including whether artist-specific requests are capped or filtered.
Part Of Google’s Gemini AI Expansion
The rollout reflects Google’s wider push to integrate its Gemini AI model across products since its release in 2023. YouTube previously tested AI-powered custom radio stations in July 2024, allowing users to generate stations from prompts. The new playlist feature builds on that experiment and is now available more broadly to paying users.
Competition With Spotify And Other Streaming Platforms
YouTube is not alone in introducing AI-powered discovery tools. Spotify launched a similar prompt-based playlist feature, while Amazon Music and Deezer have also introduced AI-assisted playlist or radio features.
AI-driven curation is quickly becoming a competitive differentiator among streaming platforms, particularly as subscriber growth becomes central to long-term revenue strategies.
Premium Strategy And Subscriber Growth
The feature arrives as YouTube works to strengthen its Premium offering. Earlier this week, the company began limiting access to song lyrics for some free-tier users of the YouTube Music app as part of what it described as a small-scale experiment.
Parent company Google recently confirmed it now has 325 million paying subscribers across services including Google One and YouTube Premium.
For music creators and industry professionals, AI playlist generation raises familiar questions around discovery, algorithmic bias and how prompt-driven listening may shape streaming patterns in 2025 and beyond.
