!["[It's] lacking the detailed metrics that users have come to expect."](https://www.thecooldown.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-recIm04BLiVmktIQu.jpg?w=1920&h=800)
Unless you haven't been online lately, you've likely seen — or received — a Spotify Wrapped. This is a beloved annual tradition (and marketing ploy) by the music streaming giant, which aggregates listener data at the end of each year to present a quirky and customized list of each user's listening habits.
But this year, the Wrapped looked and felt different. Instead of creative and silly approaches to data — like last year's beloved "Sound Town" matches — this year's felt dull.
The culprit? You guessed it — artificial intelligence.
Forbes described the Wrapped as "lackluster," "bogged down by generative AI," and "lacking the detailed metrics that users have come to expect."
Rather than top genres and albums, for instance, Forbes described the "musical micro-genres" that Spotify provided, such as "Pink Pilates Princess Strut Pop" and "Boujee Football Rap." But these "are not genres that could help one navigate a music store, or even a simple Google search, because they are not used outside of Spotify."
The bizarre Wrapped also featured a Google-generated AI bot "podcast."
"This was a bad idea," Forbes wrote. "Listening to a couple of AI bots mindlessly spitting out empty observations while mimicking the tempo of human speech is a soul-destroying experience."
AI has been controversial from the start, as people worry about both the emotional and environmental impacts of ramping up its use so dramatically.
It has been found to have some incredibly promising applications in areas such as farming and waste management; nevertheless, many people are growing more concerned about the fact that it's incredibly resource-inefficient. Because AI necessitates massively pollutive, energy-draining warehouses to power its generative models, its long-term feasibility is in question.
And after massive layoffs last year and this adoption of AI that seems to go beyond what any users truly want, many listeners are concerned that Spotify is headed toward a completely de-humanized experience — hopefully one that it, and other beloved brands, can avoid.
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