YouTube Music has a couple of new ways to discover songs on the platform that started rolling out this week. The new features include AI-generated radio and a Shazam-esque tool, as detailed by YouTube in a blog post.
The radio feature utilizes AI to create custom radio stations from text prompts. As an example, you could ask for "summertime jams" or "catchy pop choruses." Currently, the feature is rolling out to select Premium users in the US.
The custom radio station feature is similar to AI playlist generation tools that have been released by Spotify and Amazon Music. Google has been working on a YouTube Music extension for the Gemini AI assistant that essentially does the same thing but requires accessing YouTube Music from outside of the app.
The radio feature brings that tool within the app and does not appear to be related to Gemini.
If you have access to the new feature, you should see a "Ask for music any way you like" card in the home feed. Tapping the card opens a conversational UI where text prompts can be entered. It will also suggest ones.
YouTube usually tests new features on Premium users, but it's not clear when the AI radio feature will release to the rest of us.
YouTube Music's version of Shazam enables you to search for music by sound. Unlike the radio feature, the Shazam-esque tool is officially rolling out to iOS and Android users. We tried testing it but it hasn't reached our account yet.
If you do have access, you can find the music recognition tool by tapping the "search" icon. When the search tool pops up you should see a waveform icon.
The tool lets you find the name of a song by singing or letting the app listen to a song that is playing. Interestingly, you can also hum a song into the app. This would have been helpful when I tried to remember the name of Joel Corry's "Head & Heart" song for my son. All I had was this: Bum bum bum da bum bum, bum bum bum da bum.
Don't ask how long it took before I actually found the song.
