Spotify spotted prepping a $19.99/mo ‘Superpremium’ service with lossless audio, AI playlists and more

It looks like Spotify’s rumored “Superpremium” offering is gearing up for a launch. According to references discovered in the Spotify app’s code by Chris Messina, the Superpremium service now has a flashy logo and a longer list of features beyond the 24-bit lossless audio we’ve been anticipating. In fact, the broader feature set appears to be set to include the recently discovered AI playlist generation tools, advanced mixing tools, additional hours of audiobook listening and a personalized offering called “Your Sound Capsule.”

Messina had also uncovered Spotify’s development of AI playlists earlier this week, which would allow users to create unique playlists using prompts. Spotify declined to confirm the development at the time, noting it wouldn’t comment on possible new features.

However, the references to the Superpremium brand have been found in the code before today.

A couple of weeks ago, Reddit user Hypixely noted that the new, more expensive tier would be priced at $19.99 per month, citing screenshots of Spotify’s code, and would include AI playlists and lossless audio. The latter is no longer referenced as “HiFi,” the premium service Spotify introduced years ago but then failed to launch.

Questioned on the delay in Spotify’s Q2 earnings, CEO Daniel Ek said, “What I will say of course, is that Hi-Fi remains something that we think has value, but it’s something that has value to probably more aficionados in the streaming market and we’re interested in, obviously, how we could use that as one tool to, in the future, increase our value even further, but we don’t have anything to announce at this point.” Reading between the lines, it sounds like he could be suggesting using HiFi as one way to raise prices in the future, but that the service had been retooled to reach a broader audience.

In addition to the lossless audio and other findings, the Redditor had noted Superpremium users would be able to filter their library by mood, activity or genre, which Messina also confirms, adding that options like vibe and beats per minute were other filtering options now appearing. Plus, Superpremium includes 20-30 hours of audiobook listening, Messina says — a bit higher than the recently announced 15 free hours that now ship with the Premium subscription. 

Meanwhile, the Reddit user had also uncovered a Superpremium feature called Soundcheck that tells you about your listening habits and lets you discover what mix of sounds is “uniquely yours.” However, Messina is seeing this feature now labeled as “Your Sound Capsule.” He suspects it could be related to Spotify’s “playlist in a bottle” — a musical time capsule experience launched earlier this year. Plus, Messina found references to something called Highlights, which appears to be Last.fm-like listening stats.

Reached for comment, Spotify declined to share anything more on the new findings.

“At Spotify, we are constantly iterating and ideating to improve our product offering and offer value to users. But we don’t comment on speculation around possible new features and do not have anything new to share at this time,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Sarah Perez can be reached at sarahp@techcrunch.com or (415) 234-3994 on Signal.