Spotify expands music access with voice commands in third quarter 306 million Premium subscribers reached. The company’s results dated October 22 show that the number of monthly active users increased to 788 million. In addition, co-CEO Gustav Söderström argues that artificial intelligence agents can increase, rather than eliminate, the time people spend on entertainment.
The number of premium subscribers increased by 9 percent and the number of monthly active users increased by 11 percent compared to the same period last year. Spotify announced its total revenue as 5 billion euros in rounded terms and its operating profit as 672 million euros. Gross profit margin increased to 33 percent. These are the company’s third quarter results, not its forecasts for the next period.
In the same report, Spotify also highlights user control over the listening experience. The Taste Profile beta feature shows which preferences the recommendations are fed from and gives you the opportunity to change the orientation of the home page. However, this feature is currently limited to Premium subscribers aged 18 and over in the USA. Therefore, not every innovation in the results announcement is considered to have been introduced in Türkiye.
The distinction in Söderström’s explanation is that automation of tasks is not the same as content consumption. According to the company, people may leave daily tasks to an assistant, but may not want to give up activities they enjoy, such as listening to music. This view describes Spotify’s relationship with AI tools. It does not represent the results of an independent study of listener behavior.
Spotify aims to open music selection to different intermediaries
The company’s statements in the results call indicate that the target is not just a chat box in the Spotify app. Spotify aims to be the go-to service when different AI agents want music. Thus, the user’s request can come from another interface, and the music service can remain the party that evaluates the listening history.
How personalization data moves is also important here. Söderström says that Spotify makes its own evaluation of user preferences and does not transfer its entire listening history to other artificial intelligence companies. This statement serves as the company’s statement regarding data processing. It does not mean an independent privacy audit result for all partnerships.
Examples such as asking for a playlist suitable for running pace explain how a need described in natural language turns into a choice of music. Even though the user transfers his request to an assistant, Spotify remains the service that evaluates his listening preferences. However, the partnership statement does not indicate that all features will work in every country and on every subscription at the same time. In practice, the support list of the relevant integration will determine which account will work with which agent.