Google may have just let slip the future of Spotify – here's why

Google lists Spotify as a partner for Bard AI
(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

Google just listed Spotify as one of the first partners set to use its artificial intelligence (AI) "Bard" technology at its I/O developer conference.

Google vice president Sissie Hsiao revealed the news during the conference’s opening keynote, with the music streaming service appearing in a slide listing a number of the first firms set to get a Bard extension.

“Bard will be able to tap into all kinds of services from across the web, with extensions for incredible partners,” she said before the slide pictured above was shown.

Google didn’t elaborate on the nature of its partnership with Spotify, but Hsiao did show it being used in Adobe Firefly to generate completely new images. Specifically, it showed the tool using Firefly to create a custom birthday picture featuring a unicorn and cake, based on commands from Hsiao.

We’ve reached out to Google and Spotify’s press departments to get more detail about how Bard will be used and will update this page the moment we hear back from either company. Spotify debuted an AI DJ service like this in February, so the firm already does utilise AI in its services.

Bard is a rival to ChatGPT, which is used by Microsoft in its Bing search engine. The tool can be used to do everything from writing emails and web copy to enacting research and even creating computer code and custom images.

We’ve already seen many AI technologies used in music outside of Bard, including in the writing of lyrics to entire songs so that they sound as if they were written by famous artists. Nick Cave famously lambasted the lyrics written by an AI in “his style”.

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Alastair Stevenson
Editor in Chief

Alastair is What Hi-Fi?’s editor in chief. He has well over a decade’s experience as a journalist working in both B2C and B2B press. During this time he’s covered everything from the launch of the first Amazon Echo to government cyber security policy. Prior to joining What Hi-Fi? he served as Trusted Reviews’ editor-in-chief. Outside of tech, he has a Masters from King’s College London in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion, is an enthusiastic, but untalented, guitar player and runs a webcomic in his spare time. 

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