Spotify’s new ‘Song Psychic’ is like a Magic 8-Ball that answers your questions with music

Spotify is rolling out a new feature called Song Psychic that will allow its customers to ask Spotify questions and get answers in the form of music. The addition builds on the success of Spotify’s personalized, year-end review called Wrapped, which offers clever ways of turning Spotify’s music data into insights designed for social sharing. But in the case of Song Psychic, the goal is not to look back and your listening history, but to leverage Spotify’s understanding of music and song titles to answer a range of personal questions — like those you might ask a psychic or Magic 8-Ball just for fun.

To use the feature, you can visit spotify.com/songpsychic on your mobile device or scan the QR code on Song Psychic’s website. 

Once in the new experience, you can pick from a variety of broader categories, like School, Friends and Family, Love, Career, Life’s Greatest Mysteries, My Future, Myself, Style, and Lunch. (The latter can help you decide what to have for lunch!)

Within each section, there are a number of pre-populated questions you can tap on to get answers, like “Am I the drama?,” “Does my crush like me back?,” “Will I get a raise?,” “Should I go to prom?” and many others. Or, you can start typing your own question in the provided box and the app will start offering suggestions of others you could ask.

When you have entered your question, the “Song Psychic” asks you to press your finger on the screen, then colors swirl around as mystical music hums in the background before your answer is revealed in the form of a song.

For example, if you asked if someone has a crush on you, it might answer with a song titled “You Wish” (ouch!) or something more affirmative. Some of the answers are a bit mysterious. Just as a Magic 8-Ball sometimes refuses to answer a question with its “Ask Again Later” response, Spotify’s Song Psychic may respond with an answer of its own, like “Why?” instead of directly responding. Or it could offer a vague timeframe, like “Eventually” (a song by Tame Impala). All its responses are in the form of musical tracks, however.

We found that you don’t actually have to press your finger on the screen to get your response — that’s just a gimmick. But your answer is shareable by tapping on a button below which pops up a built-in sharing sheet for posting the answer to WhatsApp, Instagram Stories, IG DMs, Messenger, Facebook/Facebook Stories, Snapchat, X, Messages, and more.

Though Spotify doesn’t advertise the experience as being AI-powered, it does give you the feeling of asking an all-knowing AI chatbot a question.  (The company says it works by matching specific keywords in song titles and questions.) On its FAQ, however, the company notes that its answers are “generated entirely at random,” meaning it’s not leveraging your personal data to come to its conclusions. The experience is also designed for “entertainment only,” the site warns, and “should not be considered a serious source of advice on any issue whatsoever” — an addition that a lawyer surely forced Spotify to include.

There’s a bit of a lag in navigating the app and getting responses at times — so it’s nowhere near as fast as something like ChatGPT. We also got stuck on a screen and the back button wouldn’t work during one of our tests. Still, the experience can be quite fun and would likely increase users’ time spent in the Spotify mobile app, if it were better advertised. The Song Psychic wasn’t immediately available through its own hub in the app, though, so you’d have to keep returning to the website to get it to pop it up.

Song Psychic is available to Spotify’s free and Premium subscribers in 64 markets and in 21 languages, the company says.

The company confirmed that Song Psychic is one of a number of initiatives designed to “celebrate the spirit of Wrapped year-round.” Already, it’s debuted various surprise, original interactive experiences for fans and artists, including the New Years–inspired “Playlist In a Bottle” to “My Top Five” artist experiences with Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, ROSALÍA, BTS, and Taylor Swift.

Updated, 2/29/24, 12:54 PM ET with additional details.