YouTube Music now offers an AI enhanced 2025 listening recap
Like Spotify, YouTube offers an annual summary of listening habits for individual users, but for 2025 there is a slight change. This time around, perhaps inevitably, artificial intelligence has been used.
The insertion of AI into just about every product and service has become predictable, but there is always the interesting question of whether its use is necessary, and if it brings any benefits. So, what is the verdict with YouTube Music?
Perhaps unexpectedly, it is not the recap itself which is powered by artificial intelligence; YouTube has instead taken the decision to add an AI chatbot – powered by its own “Ask Music” feature.
This is something that is apparently aimed at anyone who is not happy with pure, unadulterated states, but who is looking for ways to drill down into little gems of data. Working like ChatGPT or any of countless other chatbots, users are invited to ask questions about their listening habits over the last year. There are a number of suggested prompts which can be used:
- How did my listening change over the year?
- Was my music more chill or hype?
- Describe my listening as a weather report
- Did I explore or listen-on-repeat more?
- What were my top electronic dance music songs?
- What animal matches my music taste?
Just like Spotify Wrapped, anyone who uses the recaps feature is encouraged to share their stats. This is as much about giving users something interesting to play with as it is about generating free advertising for YouTube Music.
You can see what things look like in the image above – as shared by 9to5Google.
Does this add much in terms of value for users? Possibly not. Is it an interesting little bit of fun for the end of the year (almost)? For some people, yes.
If you are a YouTube Music user, how do you feel about this new feature? Is it better or worse than Spotify’s approach? Or just different?