Spotify Engineers Shift Away From Traditional Coding as AI Takes Larger Role in Development

Spotify is leaning heavily into artificial intelligence to reshape how its software is developed, with senior executives revealing that some of the company’s most experienced engineers are no longer writing traditional code themselves. Instead, they are increasingly supervising and directing AI systems that handle many programming tasks.

During a recent earnings discussion, Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström explained that top developers at the company have relied almost entirely on AI tools for coding work since late last year. Engineers are now spending more time guiding automated systems to fix bugs, implement features, and test updates rather than manually writing lines of code.

The shift highlights how quickly AI-powered coding assistants are being adopted inside major technology firms. Spotify says these tools are already helping it accelerate development timelines and deliver updates to users at a faster pace.

Over the course of 2025, the company introduced more than 50 new features and refinements to its streaming platform. Several recent additions rely directly on AI, including tools that generate personalized playlists from written prompts, improve audiobook discovery, and provide deeper background information about individual songs. These features are part of Spotify’s broader effort to weave AI into both its engineering workflow and user-facing products.

Internal System “Honk” Drives Faster Development

At the center of Spotify’s engineering transformation is an proprietary internal platform known as Honk. The system is designed to connect engineers with generative AI tools that can produce and deploy code in near real time.

Honk enables developers to manage coding tasks remotely, even from mobile devices. By integrating with an AI coding assistant, the system allows engineers to request bug fixes or new features and receive working code that can be reviewed and pushed into production quickly.

According to company leadership, this workflow has significantly reduced the time required to move from idea to deployment. Engineers can initiate development tasks while away from their desks and review completed updates almost immediately. Spotify credits this approach with dramatically improving its speed of execution and helping teams iterate on products more efficiently.

Executives describe the current stage of AI adoption as an early phase of a longer transition. Rather than viewing AI as a finished solution, the company sees it as the foundation for an evolving development model in which automation plays an central role in building and maintaining software.

Investing in Proprietary Music Data

Beyond software development, Spotify is also focusing on expanding its collection of proprietary data related to listening habits and musical preferences. Company leaders argue that this dataset represents a unique asset that cannot be easily replicated by general-purpose AI models trained on public information.

Music preferences are highly subjective and often shaped by culture, geography, and personal taste. What qualifies as ideal workout music, for example, varies widely among listeners. Some audiences gravitate toward hip-hop, others toward heavy metal, while electronic dance music remains popular in many regions. By analyzing patterns across millions of users, Spotify is building a detailed picture of how people engage with music in different contexts.

The company says its recommendation systems improve as these datasets are continuously retrained and refined. This growing body of information supports more personalized suggestions and helps power new AI-driven features inside the app.

Executives believe that owning such a large and specialized dataset gives Spotify an advantage in a competitive AI landscape where many companies rely on similar pools of publicly available data. By focusing on nuanced listening behavior, Spotify aims to differentiate its services and strengthen user engagement.

Managing the Rise of AI-Generated Music

The rapid expansion of AI-generated music has also prompted questions about how Spotify plans to manage content created with automated tools. The company has taken steps to increase transparency by allowing artists and record labels to indicate in track metadata whether AI was involved in a song’s creation.

At the same time, Spotify continues to monitor its platform for spam and low-quality uploads. Maintaining content standards remains a priority as the volume of AI-assisted music grows. Rather than imposing sweeping bans, the company is focusing on labeling practices and enforcement measures designed to preserve trust among listeners and creators.

This balanced approach reflects the challenges facing streaming platforms as AI becomes more deeply embedded in music production. Spotify is attempting to encourage innovation while ensuring that its catalog remains reliable and easy to navigate.