What you need to know
- Spotify is upgrading the AI DJ experience with nine new voice presenters across English and Spanish
- Its English voices come in new American, British, Irish, Australian, and Indian accents
- Spotify has also rolled out new control functions, and now you have the choice to switch off commentary between songs
Spotify’s flagship AI DJ is like Marmite; users either love it for hands-free playback or hate it for infiltrating music discovery. One thing that both types of users can agree on is how jarring its voiceover can be — but that’s about to change.
Rolling out today (November 10) in markets where AI DJ is available, the in-app tool is getting a slew of fresh voices, allowing you to tailor your playback experience exactly to your liking. It marks AI DJ’s biggest overhaul since the launch of its requests feature in May 2025, and is coming to both Android and iOS.
There are nine new voices in total, with seven new English-language DJs spanning British, Irish, American, Indian, and Australian accents, as well as two new Spanish-language voice options. Instead of the one bog-standard voice that grates on you after a few listens, each new addition is designed to offer something different depending on how you want the experience to run.
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Whether that’s a cool, collected tone for laidback listening, or an engaging radio host-style personality for high-energy playback, AI DJ’s new personas seem to cover it all. That said, it’s not just the new voices that make up AI DJ’s latest revamp.
When it comes to AI DJ, the interruptions between songs plague users just as much as its voice, which is why Spotify is allowing you to toggle off DJ’s extensive commentary between segments in the playback. Though Spotify says you’ll still hear AI DJ’s introduction when you start a session or refresh it with new requests, the experience will be completely commentary-free to put the focus back on the music.
A fun upgrade, but it doesn’t fill in the cracks
Despite Spotify’s advanced features, AI DJ isn’t my personal favorite, and not just for the reasons mentioned above. That said, some of my music-obsessed friends stand by it as an easy way to get your daily listening minutes in, and I think its new voice presenters will be a welcome addition for them in particular.
For starters, most of the new personas seem significantly less intense and in-your-face than Spotify’s existing host, most notably DJ Declan and DJ Nell, who are Spotify’s new Irish and British voices. The same goes for DJ Sam, the Australian presenter.
As for the three new American voices, this is where Spotify is sticking with its roots. With the exception of DJ Tess, the ‘direct but inviting’ presenter with a laid-back cadence, DJ Casey and the southern-sounding DJ Lane sound just as jarring as Spotify’s inaugural AI DJ voice.
Spotify is really tapping into its personalization ethos with its new family of AI DJ personas, and yes, it gives users more choice, but it doesn’t fix the biggest issues with AI DJ — those being its repetitiveness and hindrance to music discovery as a result.
As you could probably gather, my experiences using AI DJ have been less than thrilling, and hitting the play button just triggers a listening session packed with my most-played songs from the past week or so. The same goes for using it to find new artists.
I’m constantly on the hunt for new artists and sounds, but AI DJ doesn’t quite get that. Whenever I request a list of new songs from rising artists based on the music I already listen to, it gives me nothing but tracks from artists that are already on my radar.
Given my tumultuous relationship with AI DJ, there’s no wonder I left it in the dust years ago. Even though Spotify peddles it as a handy music discovery tool, I’ve found more luck with using my Daylist for fresh finds — it’s how I discovered Chappell Roan before the virality kicked in, and I’ve never looked back.
