YouTube Music is getting a new set of AI-powered features designed to make discovering music and podcasts easier and more personalized.
The company announced the updates during its annual Made On YouTube event, introducing two major additions called “Ask Music” and “Your Podcast Lineup.”
The new tools are designed to change how people search for and discover audio content. Instead of simply typing the name of a song, artist or podcast into a search bar, users will be able to describe what they want in everyday language and let AI help them find it.
“Ask Music” is a conversational tool built directly into the YouTube Music app. It allows users to explain what they want to listen to as if they were talking to another person.
For example, instead of searching for several individual songs to create a playlist, a listener could ask Ask Music to put together a selection based on a specific mood, style or musical influence.
The feature can also be used for deeper questions about music. Someone could ask for songs that influenced a particular track or explore the story behind an artist's music.
Users could even ask detailed questions about how a song was made, such as which musician played a particular instrument on a recording.
Ask Music will have access to YouTube Music’s massive catalog of more than 300 million songs.
That library includes much more than official studio releases. Users can also discover remixes, live performances, covers, DJ sets and other versions of songs available on the platform.
This means a single request could potentially lead users to several different versions or interpretations of the music they are interested in.
The conversational approach is designed to make music discovery feel less like searching a database and more like asking someone with knowledge of music for a recommendation.
YouTube Music is also introducing “Your Podcast Lineup,” an AI-powered feature focused on helping listeners discover podcasts.
The feature addresses a problem that has become increasingly common as the number of podcasts continues to grow. There are now so many shows and episodes available that even regular podcast listeners can struggle to keep track of everything.
People may have a few favorite shows they already follow, but finding something new can require a significant amount of searching.
“Your Podcast Lineup” is designed to make that process easier.
The feature will appear on the podcast page inside the YouTube Music app and will create a short, spoken guide featuring podcast recommendations.
Each week, the AI-generated guide will highlight shows that could interest the listener and explain why each recommendation was selected.
After introducing the recommendations, the feature can take users directly to suggested episodes, allowing them to start listening without having to manually search for each show.
The approach is similar to other AI-powered experiments happening across the audio industry.
Spotify, for example, recently introduced an AI-powered personal podcast feature that can generate podcast episodes based on a listener’s interests and prompts.
YouTube Music’s approach is focused more heavily on helping listeners discover existing podcasts rather than creating an entirely new show for them.
The new features are part of YouTube’s broader effort to integrate artificial intelligence into different parts of its services.
The company has already experimented with AI-powered music hosts on YouTube Music. Those hosts can provide stories, trivia and commentary connected to the music a listener is currently playing.
The latest additions take that idea further by allowing AI to become part of the discovery process itself.
Instead of simply recommending another song or podcast based on listening history, YouTube Music is giving users more direct ways to explain what they are looking for.
That could be particularly useful for listeners whose requests are too specific to describe with a few search terms.
Both “Ask Music” and “Your Podcast Lineup” are expected to roll out soon to YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscribers worldwide.
With these updates, YouTube Music is positioning AI as a more active part of the listening experience, helping users not only play what they already know, but also discover music and podcasts they may not have found on their own.
