During the SXSW conference on Friday, Spotify’s co-CEO, Gustav Söderström, unveiled a new beta feature. This capability will, for the first time, allow listeners to review and modify their Taste Profile, which is an algorithmically generated model of their music preferences.
The Taste Profile is fundamental to Spotify’s recommendation engine, influencing personalized playlists such as Discover Weekly, Made For You suggestions, and the annual year-end review known as Spotify Wrapped, among other features.
Initially rolling out to Premium subscribers in New Zealand, Spotify will enable users to view all their listening data in a single location within the app, encompassing music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Users will then have the option to edit this profile and further refine future recommendations by requesting more or less of a particular vibe. Following these adjustments, the app’s home page will display an updated set of suggestions.
To access the Taste Profile, users simply tap on their profile picture and scroll down. Changes can be implemented using natural language prompts.
Spotify had previously offered some tools to exclude music from a user’s Taste Profile, but these were not as comprehensive. Instead, users could only exclude specific tracks or playlists from their profile. Due to these limitations and the generally obscure nature of the Taste Profile, Spotify users frequently expressed dissatisfaction that the app’s recommendations did not accurately reflect their interests.
Currently, it’s common for users to share their Spotify accounts with others, such as family members accessing the account via a shared smart speaker or smart TV in the living room, or teenagers taking control in CarPlay during drives.
At other times, users might listen to content they don’t wish to define as their “taste,” like sleep sounds or calming tracks played at night, or music for children’s entertainment. Users often struggle to recall which tracks or playlists need to be removed, nor do they always have the time to go back and perform these actions. This can lead to the Taste Profile becoming cluttered with music users genuinely dislike.
This issue also significantly impacted, and in some cases, spoiled, many individuals’ annual Wrapped experience within the app — particularly due to children’s use of their parents’ Spotify accounts. For years, Spotify users have requested a remedy for this problem.
Spotify has indicated that the Taste Profile feature will be deployed in New Zealand over the coming weeks before being expanded to additional markets.