Streaming music service Spotify is testing a new option to disable personalized recommendations for future use.
The new option might have users prevent ‘recommended’ songs from playing on their stream. Disabling personalized recommendations can prove to be useful for those who do not like the algorithms and songs being matched according to listening tastes. The company’s recommendation system uses AI and machine learning methods to analyze favorite genres, listening history, time of day, and more to come up with additional tracks. The algorithm takes into account tempo, key, time signature, and other characteristics to filter songs users might like.
Collaborative filtering is also taken into account- two users with similar tastes will have songs coming out of the other’s. Apple will have a similar feature in iOS 17.2 for Apple Music called Focus filter, and this is expected to launch in December. Spotify’s disabling of personalized recommendations does not have a timeframe.