Ask Music creates an AI custom radio on YouTube Music

In recent months, a new YouTube Music function has grabbed headlines. It is currently becoming more widely available, albeit it is still in testing. It's an AI-powered tool that generates a playlist for you based on a prompt. The feature's official name is now revealed.

The AI prompt-based tool looks to be called "Ask Music". It will generate a radio depending on a conversational prompt that you provide. International availability has been observed in recent weeks.

Accounts that are being tested will first get a "Introducing Ask Music" prompt, which explains how to use the functionality to transform any concept into a custom radio. This notification suggests that a larger introduction is imminent, though it is unclear when the feature will become official.

The "Ask Music" option appears to be part of the YouTube Premium membership. Gemini, Google's creative AI chatbot, isn't named officially, but the glitter emblem indicates that the feature is using its powers.

The feature shows as a purple card in the Home feed, beneath Create a radio or the banner announcing the availability of the June - August 2024 recap. When you tap on the feature, you'll get a full-screen chat UI with example prompts ranging from a few words to whole sentences.

When you provide a prompt and it processes it, you will receive a shorter title that includes your prompt and a description of the station. The first tune will play, and you can save the radio to your library.

For the time being, the test has been seen in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and it appears exclusively on Android devices, not the iOS app. Of course, the new feature's availability is expected to broaden in the next weeks and months.

This feature sounds like a lot of fun, and we're thrilled to see it become more widely available and official. Sometimes you don't know what you want to listen to, and learning to articulate it in natural language could help you locate your next favorite music.