Music streaming platform, Spotify, has unveiled a long term strategy centered on Artificial intelligence (AI), personalised media experiences and premium subscription expansion as it targets one billion subscribers globally.
The company disclosed the plans during its third Investor Day held in New York, where executives presented Spotify’s future roadmap, financial outlook and product innovations in a year marking the platform’s 20th anniversary.
The event featured presentations from Spotify’s Co-Chief Executive Officers, Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström, alongside senior members of its global leadership team.
Spotify said it currently operates in 184 markets with 761 million monthly active users and nearly 300 million paying subscribers, making it one of the world’s largest subscription-based digital platforms.
Opening the event, Norström said Spotify remained committed to helping creators connect with audiences while continuing to evolve the digital entertainment experience.
“Spotify is in the business of delivering creativity and culture to the world, helping artists, creators, and authors connect with audiences and grow their careers.
“The opportunity ahead has never been greater,” he said.
He explained that its next phase of growth would be driven by the generative era where users would move beyond passive listening into more interactive and personalised experiences powered by AI.
Söderström said Spotify’s transformation was being powered by a proprietary built on trillions of user signals collected daily across music, podcasts and audiobooks.
According to him, the system will allow Spotify to better understand users’ preferences, context and intent in real time.
He said the company was evolving from traditional recommendation systems into dynamic AI-generated experiences tailored to individual users.
The Co-CEOs highlighted the company’s financial progress since its previous Investor Day in 2022 , revealing that Spotify had recorded an 18 percent foreign exchange neutral revenue compound annual growth rate, a 32 per cent gross margin and nearly three billion euros in free cash flow in 2025.
They also outlined four major pillars shaping Spotify’s future strategy which includes deeper monetisation of highly engaged users, expansion of social and interactive listening experiences, AI-powered personalisation and what the company described as “Time Well Spent”.
“Time Well Spent” philosophy focuses on building experiences users consider meaningful rather than merely addictive.
Nicole Burrow, Vice President of Product Design, said the company deliberately designed products that encouraged positive user experiences and stronger emotional connections.
“Every day, we make deliberate choices so that time spent with Spotify feels worth it.
“We take ordinary moments and make them more engaging, more personal, and more meaningful through the experiences we create.”
Burrow added that Spotify ranked first in a recent brand affinity study measuring which digital platforms users felt they never regretted spending time on.
Spotify executives also emphasised the increasing role of collaborative and social listening experiences across the platform.
The company disclosed that features such as Jam and collaborative playlists were now being used by almost 50 million users each.
Gustav Gyllenhammar, Senior Vice President of Markets and Subscriptions, said Spotify remained optimistic about reaching one billion subscribers globally through deeper localisation and AI driven user engagement strategies.
He cited strong market growth in countries including Sweden, Brazil, India and the United States.
According to him, Spotify’s paid penetration in Sweden is approaching 50 per cent of the population while subscriber growth in India has increased sevenfold since the company’s last Investor Day.
The company also announced several new AI-powered consumer tools including Prompted Playlists and Taste Profile which allow users to shape listening experiences using natural language prompts.
The company added that AI was becoming central not only to personalisation but also to how Spotify develops products internally.
Niklas Gustavsson, Vice President of Engineering, said 99 per cent of Spotify engineers used AI tools weekly, while more than 73 per cent of code contributions were AI-assisted.
He said AI-driven workflows had significantly reduced the time needed to test and launch new products.
Spotify further announced landmark licensing agreements with Universal Music Group and Universal Music Publishing Group.
The agreements will support a new feature enabling Spotify Premium users to create AI-generated covers and remixes using participating artists’ catalogues, with built-in protections for rights holders.
Charlie Hellman, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Music, said the initiative was designed to address growing concerns around AI-generated music and copyright ownership.
“Generative AI is accelerating creation at an unprecedented pace.
“Without a rights system in place, artists can lose control of their work and value can be created without flowing back to the people who made it.
“This is exactly the kind of problem Spotify was built to solve,” he said.
Spotify disclosed that it paid more than 11 billion dollars to the global music industry in 2025 alone, thereby bringing its all time payouts to more than 70 billion dollars.
Spotify executives also highlighted strong growth across podcasts and audiobooks.
Roman Wasenmüller, Vice President and Global Head of Podcasts, said podcasting had entered its second consecutive year of profitability on the platform.
He announced a new feature that would allow creators offer direct subscriptions to loyal listeners.
In audiobooks, he said its premium catalogue had expanded from 150,000 titles to more than 700,000 titles across 22 markets within two years.
Spotify’s Vice President and Global Head of Audiobooks, Owen Smith, said listening hours grew by 60 per cent between 2024 and 2025, with younger users driving much of the increase.
