Spotify is launching a beta feature allowing Premium users, starting in New Zealand, to directly view and edit their algorithmically generated Taste Profile. This profile powers personalized recommendations, and users can now fine-tune it using natural language prompts to improve future suggestions.
The update addresses long-standing user complaints that recommendations were skewed by shared account usage or incidental listening, like sleep sounds or children's music, which previously cluttered their profiles. This clutter often led to inaccurate annual Wrapped summaries.
The main topics covered are the new user-editable Taste Profile feature, its purpose in improving recommendations, and the user problems it aims to solve regarding shared accounts and incidental listening.
At the SXSW conference on Friday, Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström announced a new feature, launching in beta, that will allow listeners for the first time to review and edit their Taste Profile, the algorithmically generated model of their music preferences.
This Taste Profile is key to Spotify’s recommendations, including personalized playlists like Discover Weekly, Made For You recommendations, and the year-end review known as Spotify Wrapped, among other things.
Starting with Premium listeners initially in New Zealand, Spotify will allow users to see all their listening data in one place in the app, including music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Users will then be able to edit this profile and even fine-tune future recommendations by asking for more or less of a certain vibe. After doing so, the app’s home page will reflect a different set of suggestions.
To access the Taste Profile, users tap on their profile pic, then scroll down. Changes can be made using natural language prompts.
Spotify had previously offered some tools to remove music from your Taste Profile before, but they were not as comprehensive. Instead, users were only able to exclude certain tracks or playlists from their profile. Because of this, and the largely hidden nature of the Taste Profile overall, Spotify users often complained that the app’s recommendations didn’t reflect their interests.
Today, users often share their Spotify account with others, like family members who access their account through a shared smart speaker or smart TV in the living room, for example, or teens who take over in CarPlay while they drive.
Other times, users may listen to music that they don’t want to characterize as their “taste,” like the sleep sounds or quiet tracks they play at night, or music to entertain their kids. Users don’t always remember which tracks or playlists need to be removed, nor do they have time to go back and do so. This can lead to the Taste Profile becoming cluttered with music users don’t like.
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It also significantly impacted, even ruined, many people’s annual Wrapped experience in the app — particularly because of kids’ use of their parents’ Spotify accounts. For years, Spotify users have asked for a fix for this problem.
Spotify says the Taste Profile feature will roll out in the coming weeks in New Zealand before expanding to other markets.
Meridiano
