YouTube Music has introduced two exciting new features aimed at enhancing song discovery on its platform. Recently announced by YouTube, these new features include an AI-generated conversational radio function and a Shazam-like tool that helps users identify songs by singing, humming, or playing parts of them.
The AI-generated conversational radio feature is currently being tested with select Premium users in the United States. These users can create a personalized radio station by simply describing the type of music they want to hear, such as “catchy pop choruses” or “upbeat pop anthems.”
The rollout of this experimental feature was not unexpected, as reports had already hinted at YouTube Music exploring such capabilities.
YouTube Music’s new feature aligns with trends seen in other music streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, and now Deezer, who are also experimenting with AI-driven playlist generation tools based on user prompts.
Users with access to this new feature will notice a “Ask for music any way you like” card in the app’s home feed. By engaging with the card, users can provide custom prompts or select from suggested options in a user-friendly conversational interface.
While currently limited to select users, YouTube plans to expand this feature to a broader audience in the future.
In addition to the radio feature, YouTube Music now offers a song recognition tool that allows users to search for songs by sound. By tapping the “search” option in the app, users can utilize a new waveform icon to identify songs through singing, humming, or playing them.
Compared to the well-known Shazam app, YouTube Music’s tool stands out as it accommodates searching by humming or singing, whereas Shazam primarily relies on playing the actual song for recognition.
Initially available to select Android YouTube Music users, the song detection feature is now officially rolling out to all users on both iOS and Android platforms.
