YouTube Music’s AI-generated radio feature to officially be called “Ask Music”

In the previous couple of months, a new YouTube Music feature made headlines. It’s seeing a wider availability at the moment, although still in its testing period. It’s a generative AI-powered feature that creates a playlist for you based on a prompt. Now, we learn how the feature will be officially called.”Ask Music” appears to be the name of the AI prompt-based feature. It will generate a radio based on a conversation-style prompt that you give it. International availability has been seen in recent weeks.

For the accounts that are getting the test, they first see an “Introducing Ask Music” prompt that explains to you that you can use the feature to turn any idea into a custom radio. This message indicates that a wider launch could be close, although it’s not yet entirely clear when the feature will become official.

The “Ask Music” feature appears to be a part of the YouTube Premium membership. Google’s generative AI chatbot, Gemini, is not explicitly named, but you can see the feature uses its powers based on the sparkle icon present. The feature appears as a purple card in the Home feed, alongside Create a radio or the banner that advertises the availability of the June – August 2024 recap. When you tap on the feature, you’re greeted with a fullscreen chat UI and example prompts ranging from a few words to full sentences.

When you give it a prompt and it processes it, you will get a shorter title based on your prompt and a description of the radio. The first track starts playing, and you can save the radio to your library.

For now, the test has been spotted in the US, Canada, and Australia, and is seen only on Android devices and not on the iOS app so far. Of course, it’s expected that the availability of the new feature will broaden in the following weeks and months.

I find this feature very fun, and I’m excited for it to see wider availability and become official. Sometimes you don’t know exactly what you want to listen to, and getting the ability to explain it in natural language may help you find your next favorite song.