Disappointed by your 2024 Spotify Wrapped? Blame Google’s AI
Spotify decided to shake things up for its 2024 Wrapped recap, employing Google AI to make a generative ‘podcast’ – but users were not impressed
When Spotify dropped its viral year-end musical round-up Wrapped earlier this month, the disappointment online was palpable.
“I’m not usually one to complain, but this was one of the most boring Spotify Wrapped recaps I’ve been a part of, and I’ve been a member since 2017,” a Reddit user said.
“Spotify Wrapped flopped this year so bad like where are the music cities, the playlists, the top genres or the listening auras … all that wait for what,” a user on X (formerly Twitter) wrote.
While the company said a record number of users checked out their Wrapped this year, an engineer who once worked on the feature said he understands why many online were disappointed.
Glenn McDonald is a former Spotify software engineer who worked on projects, including Wrapped, for over a decade before being caught in one of several rounds of sweeping lay-offs that saw a 25 per cent staff reduction.
This year, Wrapped “didn’t give me any context”, McDonald said.
“It didn’t connect me to communities or the world, or put my listening in relationship to anything,” he said. “So, for me, it misses the important potential of a streaming service where everybody is listening together and just treats it as if each individual listener is listening by themselves.”
