YouTube Music is adding two new AI tools announced at this year’s Made On YouTube event to help users find music and podcasts without manual searching.
Ask Music
The first feature, Ask Music, sits inside the app and lets users describe what they want to hear in plain English. It searches across more than 300 million tracks in the YouTube Music library, including official recordings, remixes, live performances, covers, and DJ sets.
Instead of typing keywords, users can ask for a mix based on the songs that inspired a specific track. They can also query who played bass on a particular recording or request details about the history of a genre.
The tool allows users to build custom listening queues, explore the motivations behind an artist’s work, or dig deeper into music history through conversation.
Your Podcast Lineup
The second update is Your Podcast Lineup, a personalised audio guide for discovery. It addresses the problem of having more podcasts than time to listen to them.
Even regular listeners struggle to keep up with new episodes or find new shows. This feature appears on the podcast page in the app. Each week, it provides a short spoken preview of recommended shows and explains why they might appeal to the listener before moving directly to suggested episodes.
Context
Spotify recently introduced an AI feature that generates podcast episodes based on user interests and prompts. YouTube is continuing its broader push to integrate AI throughout its services. Last year, the platform tested AI-powered music hosts that provided stories, fan trivia, and commentary related to what users were listening to.
Both updates arrive soon for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscribers worldwide.
What it means
Listeners can now ask for music using natural language rather than searching for specific titles. The service handles the search across a massive library of official and unofficial content. Podcast listeners receive a weekly spoken summary of new shows tailored to their taste, reducing the effort required to find new content.
