Were by far the most ubiquitous experience for music: Spotifys Head of Consumer Experience talks to me about the streaming giant's next 20 years, including its plans to expand to new formats and combat AI music

Date:
Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Description:
As Spotify celebrates its 20th anniversary, I spoke with Sten Garmark about the platform's exciting future developments.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Earlier this week Spotify celebrated its 20th birthday, and to mark the milestone I spoke with Sten Garmark, the music-streaming giant's Global Head of Consumer Experience , about the company's early years, and its impact on both the music industry and the wider culture. In the second part of our discussion, we turned to the future, and discussed what Spotify plans to achieve in the next 20 years and beyond. When we first spoke, Garmark teased that Spotify always has ideas up its sleeve and lets just say the platform has some ambitious plans, including moving into new formats. A multimedia future beyond music, podcast, and audiobooks (Image credit: Future) We went from music, and we've added wonderful new types of creative people to the platform, says Garmark. We've added podcasters and their conversations, and now we have the world's most interesting people come and have conversations for hours. And for authors its the same thing. People can put their whole
life into writing a book, and its just instantly available at your
fingertips. Music, podcasts, and audiobooks are Spotifys core formats, and though not all subscribers will make the most of all three, the company still prides itself on giving its members options. I feel like as humans, this has never existed in the past, says Garmark. You can live anywhere and you can have access to everything. It's really inspiring and fun. Article continues below You may like Spotify's Head of Consumer Experience reflects on 20 years of the music platform Sonos' CEO reveals what's 'holding us back' from music streaming innovation From Wrapped to Taylor Swift: 5 defining moments in Spotify's 20-year history

And for Garmark, there are no limits to where Spotify might go next. I think we're going to add some more formats that people are going to love from more creative people. So that's probably in our future, he tells me. Control, community, ubiquity (Image credit: Spotify / Future) User control and personalization are the foundation of the platforms entire existence. Over
the last 20 years Spotify has doubled down on allowing users to shape their own in-app experiences, and its Garmarks mission to push this even further in future developments.

I spoke about having more control. The unlocking of AI enables users in their own language, to express who they want to be and what they aspire to do," he says. Not what an algorithm believes they should do, but what they want to do themselves. It's an inflection point, and I think we have a business model where this makes sense.

However, Garmark admits that Spotify has been a bit of a singular player when it comes to establishing communities. We've had a multitude of social features. But we think that we can do more in the domain of features of multiplayer that you do with your friends, he continues, hinting at plans to enrich Spotifys connectivity tools like Jam and Messages. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

We have many more ideas in this domain, in creating conversations between people (that otherwise wouldnt happen) around the most inspiring people on
the planet. We hope to invest a lot more there.

Right now Spotify is pretty much omnipresent in terms of its availability on different devices and platforms. Spotify Connect allows you to smoothly play music through compatible smart speakers, while Apple CarPlay and Android Auto give you easy access to music via your cars dashboard. So where does it go from there? This is close to heart, Garmark reveals. From a user's
standpoint, were by far the most ubiquitous experience for music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Were essentially everywhere. If a brand is launching a consumer product of any type, they call us in advance; I need to have Spotify on my thing, otherwise I can't sell it. And we have great experiences for all sorts of form factors. Were available across more than 2000 different device types right now, and of course, there's more coming out all the time. The AI plague looms As the brand looks towards the next 20 years, theres one major threat Spotify and other music streamers are facing the rise of AI-generated music and AI clones. There are two sides to the AI debate. The first celebrates it as a helpful production tool which, in terms of championing the creative choices of its artists, Spotify acknowledges. What to read next Here are 3 ways to spot AI-generated music in Spotify, and where you can report it Spotify takes steps to combat AI-generated music fraud with new approval system These are the areas I think Spotify should start investing in to improve its experience

Artists on the platform tend to be the people that use the technology first, Garmark observes. If you look at the past, when electric guitars came out, they used that, and then you could make music with a turntable and sampler, and then with a computer. So it's a creative tool.

We're working with the industry to help artists annotate parts of the song that were made with AI, and they can publish that. We believe in transparency to the user.

But theres also a malicious side to AI chiefly fraudulent streams and artist impersonation which Garmark expresses deep concern about. Theres a downside in that there are other people that want to scam us and the artists by trying to divert users' listening and attention to things that they don't want to listen to. Basically to have an economic gain from that, he says.

The company is already taking action on this front. In the last 12 months, we've removed 25 million AI tracks, Garmark tells me. We have rules against impersonation, and we've also helped set up new protectionist mechanisms for artists so that they can more securely control what goes up on their
platform.

The last 20 years was just the start for Spotify, and theres no doubt the
next 20 years will see it shaking things up even more. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/audio/spotify/were-by-far-the-most-ubiquitous-experi ence-for-music-spotifys-head-of-consumer-experience-talks-to-me-about-the-next -20-years-of-the-company-spotlighting-its-plans-to-expand-formats-fight-agains t-ai-and-more


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)