Spotify lets users steer their own algorithm with new Taste Profile feature

Spotify is testing a new feature that lets users steer their own algorithm, offering the ability to let you review and edit what it calls your Taste Profile.

The Taste Profile will display your listening data from music, podcasts, and audiobooks, profiling “the artists and genres you love to the habits that define your day”. The new feature will first be available in its beta phase to Premium users in New Zealand only. It’s not yet sure when or if this feature will become more widely available.

This new feature was announced at SXSW by Spotify’s Co-CEO Gustav Söderström, and is based on its own finding that more than 80 percent of listeners say personalisation is what they love most about Spotify.

Via a blog published on the Spotify Newsroom, it says that if something doesn’t feel quite right in your listening data, you can “flag when your profile misses the mark” and ask for “more or less of a certain vibe, or simply share what you’re in the mood for”. A video suggests users will need to use an AI-powered chatbot to do so.

The Taste Profile is part of its next steps to make personalisation more “transparent, responsive, and truly yours”. It follows on from another beta launch, Prompted Playlists, which was unveiled in December last year.

Spotify also recently unveiled its annual Loud & Clear report, which dissects music streaming economics. The latest iteration of the report revealed that Spotify was the highest-paying retailer globally last year, paying the music industry more than $11 billion in 2025.

Spotify payouts also increased by more than 10 percent year-over-year, which is more than double the rate of other music industry income sources. It also claims that these payouts weren’t concentrated to a small number of superstar artists, and that roughly half of royalties were generated by independent artists and labels.

To find out more about Taste Profiles or read the full Loud & Clear report, head over to the Spotify Newsroom.

Rachel is a DIY musician who began learning guitar and keyboard from her bedroom at 14. She has written news and features for MusicTech since 2022, and also has bylines across Kerrang!, Guitar.com, and The Forty-Five. Though a lover of heavy music, her guilty pleasure is 2000s pop.