Spotify debuts Taste Profile beta for NZ Premium users
Spotify has unveiled a new personalisation feature called Taste Profile, set to roll out to Premium subscribers in New Zealand in the coming weeks. The beta release makes New Zealand one of the first markets to get access.
Taste Profile shows how Spotify interprets a user's listening activity and adds controls to adjust that interpretation. Spotify says the update is aimed at giving subscribers clearer, more direct influence over what appears on the Home feed.
Viewing and editing
The feature combines signals from listening across music, podcasts and audiobooks. It presents a consolidated view of the artists, genres, and other themes Spotify associates with an account, and allows users to edit parts of that profile.
Spotify says the controls are designed to help listeners "refine" their profile so recommendations better match what they want. Any changes affect how recommendations evolve over time on the Home screen, a key entry point for discovery.
Taste Profile also lets people flag when recommendations miss the mark. Subscribers can ask for more or less of a particular "vibe" or indicate what they are in the mood for, which influences what is prioritised-and what is reduced-in future Home recommendations.
More signals
Taste Profile is designed to reflect more than straightforward listening history. Spotify says it can factor in current interests and habits, such as fitness routines or commuting patterns, alongside preferences for artists and genres.
The launch follows a broader shift across consumer platforms towards greater transparency in recommendation systems. Many services have expanded user controls in response to scrutiny from regulators and researchers, and to changing expectations about how feeds and suggestions are generated.
Spotify already offers several ways to influence recommendations, including likes, follows, and playlist behaviour. It also provides features that explain aspects of personalisation, such as year-end listening summaries. Taste Profile goes further by surfacing a direct representation of the system's interpretation and adding explicit adjustment controls.
The company announced the feature at SXSW, where Spotify Co-CEO Gustav Söderström described it as the next stage in its personalisation work.
"This is the next step in our vision to make personalization more transparent, responsive, and truly yours," said Gustav Söderström, Co-CEO, Spotify.
Premium first
New Zealand Premium subscribers will be first to receive the feature as the rollout begins. Spotify has not said when it will reach free-tier accounts or other markets. The company has described the release as beta, typically signalling ongoing testing and iteration during the initial rollout.
Spotify says more than 80% of its listeners cite personalisation as what they like most about the service. The claim highlights the importance of recommendation quality to engagement and retention, particularly as competition intensifies across music streaming and audio platforms.
Taste Profile spans multiple formats on Spotify rather than focusing only on music. The service has steadily expanded into podcasts and audiobooks and integrated them into the same app experience. A unified profile across formats suggests Spotify is aligning discovery tools across its audio catalogue.
The feature also sits alongside another beta tool, Prompted Playlist, which Spotify describes as a way for users to steer recommendations by creating playlists based on listening history or a current mood. Together, the two updates point to a product direction that blends algorithmic suggestions with more explicit user input.
Spotify says users can adjust Taste Profile as much as they want, or ignore it and continue using the service as before. It frames the tool as a way to intervene when recommendations drift away from a listener's preferences.
"As we continue building the future of Spotify, we're excited to help you shape an experience that grows and evolves alongside you," said Söderström.