Which Has a Better AI Playlist Creator?

AI-powered personalization features are all the rave when it comes to improving user experience for apps lately, be it evolving smart recommendations when you shop, or lists created based on your viewing/listening history on streaming apps.

Spotify and YouTube Music are top contenders when it comes to music streaming, but how do the two apps fare in terms of their AI-assisted playlist-making features? Here’s a breakdown of the features, which app has a better offering, and what improvements we’d like to see.

What Is Spotify’s AI Playlist Feature?

Spotify’s AI Playlist has been in beta for more than a year, and is turning out to be a useful and robust Spotify feature. It’s an AI-assisted way to create personalized playlists in seconds that you can customize and edit to your liking. You can provide a prompt in a chat to Spotify, and you will instantly get a playlist of 30 songs, which you can refine until you’re happy with the result.

Spotify combines its AI with its “powerful personalization technology” for AI Playlist, and the feature is still developing. You can type in any prompt that can help Spotify catch the vibe, mood, genre, or general theme of music you’re looking for in the playlist. Of course, the more specific and detailed your prompt, the more personalized your playlist will look.

You can create an AI playlist on the Spotify mobile app. To do this, go to your Library and select the “+” (plus) button in the upper-right corner (alternatively, tap the “Create” button in the lower-right corner of your screen, if it’s available).

Tap “AI Playlist,” then start typing your prompt to the AI chatbot. You can also try out the preselected prompts available to you, such as “Lo-fi beats to study study while crying” and “The most popular songs from the disco era.”

Your playlist will then be created, and you can remove songs that you don’t want. Click on “Create” to complete the playlist, or tap “Refine this Playlist” to go back and edit your prompt.

What I like about Spotify AI is how convenient it is to use: you can entirely skip the time taken for the playlist creation process by using a detailed prompt and refining the playlist, and have a playlist ready to go in less than five minutes. It’s also a feature that goes hand-in-hand with another Spotify Beta feature, the AI DJ, which has recently received an interactive voice command feature.

What Is YouTube Music’s Ask Music Feature?

YouTube Music’s relatively new offering is its AI radio station, Ask Music. Last year, YouTube Music announced that it was testing a prompt-based, conversational AI radio feature that has been slowly rolling out to users. Ask Music is pretty similar to Spotify’s AI Playlist: you can type out a prompt featuring music genres, moods, vibes, or decades, and a radio station is instantly created for you. This can quickly be converted into a playlist that you can save to your library.

To create an AI radio station on YouTube Music, go to the mobile app and scroll down your home tab until you find “Ask for Music.” You will see a carousel of prompts and a text box.

Tap the textbox to type out a prompt for the radio station you want to create. There are a few available prompts you can use if you want.

Once this is generated, tap the “+” (plus) sign to add it to your library as a playlist. Select the text box to modify or ask for another radio station. You can also tap the mic icon to record an audio prompt instead.

Go to your library tab to view the AI playlist, which will feature non-stop music.

Who Can Use These Features?

The Spotify AI Playlist feature is not available for all users. Spotify Premium users in certain markets (like the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Ireland) can access the feature on the Android or iOS app. Even if you have a Premium subscription, you cannot find this feature on the desktop app or web browser version of Spotify.

YouTube Music’s Ask Music is available as a Beta feature for YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium mobile app users. While it initially started as a rollout for Android users only in 2024, the feature is also available for YouTube Music on iPhone and iPad. Similar to Spotify, YouTube Music is rolling out this feature in phases to users in select countries, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

How Easy Is It to Create Playlists?

After using both apps for assisted AI playlists, I can safely say that both AI Playlist and Ask Music create playlists with ease. If you have a prompt ready, you can create a playlist or radio station in just about a minute, with the only difference between Spotify and YouTube Music being that Spotify gives you a limited playlist (30 songs), while the latter generates an endless stream of radio. Depending on what you prefer, you might find one better than the other.

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If you want a limited playlist instead of a radio station to access from your library, you would prefer Spotify’s AI Playlist. However, with Ask Music, you never run out of songs, so this AI playlist is better suited for study, work, or travel playlists that you don’t want to keep meddling with.

Making Modifications to Playlists

Refining your AI playlist can be key to crafting the perfect assisted playlist, so how do these two services fare in that regard?

Once you enter your prompt and a playlist is generated, both Spotify and YouTube Music allow you to go back and edit your prompt or write a new prompt altogether. One advantage that Spotify has, however, is that you can modify individual songs from the playlist created (remove them from the playlist or add them to other playlists in your library). You can add a song to your AI playlist to stay so that it remains even if you refine the playlist.

YouTube Music does not allow you to remove a song from the AI station once the playlist is generated. This is a bit of an inconvenience, since you have to go to your library and start playing a song before you can remove it from the playlist. One thing that YouTube Music does have is pre-generated refining prompts, which you can select to instantly refine your playlist. It’s a very useful feature.

When it comes to editing, Spotify wins by a slight margin, given that your playlist can be better refined to retain songs you want and delete those you don’t even before you modify the prompt.

Do the AI Playlists Stick to the Prompts?

Most prompts that Spotify and YouTube Music are given yield similar results. I find Spotify’s personalization prompts (such as “Create a playlist with my most listened to songs of 2025” or “Create a workout playlist from my library”) to be much easier to use, since YouTube Music’s playlist, being endless, will feature new songs (that you may not want).

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Spotify’s AI Playlist sporadically has a tough time generating playlists (giving an error message of sorts), which can be a little frustrating at times. I’m yet to come across any errors on YouTube Music, but for both apps, you might want to stick to simpler prompts without too many complications for best results.

I have, however, noticed that YouTube Music sometimes yields inaccurate results while generating playlists (such as adding slow ballads to an upbeat workout playlist), so you will have a tougher time editing later.

Both apps, however, do have certain prompts they cannot carry out depending on the app’s policy. Spotify, for instance, does not generate anything for prompts linking to current events or brands.

What Improvements Are Needed?

Spotify has a few things it can do to improve its AI Playlist feature. First, accessing the AI Playlist involves too many steps, so featuring it on the home tab (like the AI DJ) might make it easier for users who aren’t aware of it.

Secondly, it could use a carousel-style prompt UI right in the home tab (like YouTube Music) to make the playlist generation process faster, and maybe even the instant refining prompts.

Finally, having the choice to create a longer playlist (up to 40–50 songs, maybe) could be helpful for those looking for an uninterrupted playlist.

As for YouTube Music’s AI playlist, the most glaring improvement it needs is the ability to refine the playlist by adding or removing individual songs after the playlist has been generated, so that the prompt edit can retain or remove songs as needed. Having a choice to control the number of songs instead of an endless radio station could benefit some listeners.

Since this AI playlist is technically a radio station, you cannot customize the cover art like you can on Spotify, which can be another improvement to help personalize the user experience.

Which Is Better?

In my opinion, Spotify takes the cake in this battle of AI-assisted playlist creation. The playlist refinement feature is a must-have, and the accuracy of generated playlists is excellent. I like using YouTube Music’s playlist better because of the UI, but since I don’t prefer an endless playlist, Spotify works best for me.

If you are looking for a quick, short playlist that’s easy to refine and edit, then Spotify is the better choice. However, if you’re looking for a radio station that can be created quickly without much editing needed, then YouTube Music is easier to use.

With improvements, however, I think YouTube Music can easily catch up with Spotify’s AI Playlist, especially given its UI advantage, which Spotify can learn from. Given YouTube Music’s exciting new features, using Ask Music in combination may improve your user experience even more.

Both Spotify and YouTube Music’s AI features, which are both still in development, will see improvements as the rollout continues. Depending on which streaming platform you use more, your playlists will be more personalized and easy to use, but if assisted playlists sound like something you’re interested in, don’t miss out on giving both a shot.