The latest Spotify Updates: The new way you discover, trust, and anticipate music
Three new features, SongDNA, Verified by Spotify, and expanded Countdown Pages, are rolling out now. Here's what they mean for listeners and artists alike.
Every song has its own story, of how it was made and who was involved in the process. SongDNA brings all of that into one place, inside Spotify. The feature displays who wrote, produced, and engineered a song, and shows how it connects to other music through samples and covers.
Think of it as a family tree for your favourite tracks, powered by artist-submitted data and community sourcing. For songwriters and producers who often work behind the scenes, it's meaningful recognition. For fans, it's a new way of discovery. It's rolling out now in beta for Premium users on iOS and Android, with broader availability throughout April/May.
With the rise of AI-generated music, Spotify is also rolling out a "Verified by Spotify" badge, a light green checkmark that signals a real, active artist stands behind a profile.
To earn it, an artist needs consistent listener engagement over time, compliance with Spotify's platform policies, and a verifiable presence beyond the app. In putting information such as tour dates, merch, or linked social accounts. AI-persona artists are not eligible at launch. Spotify says that more than 99% of artists listeners actively search for will already be verified, hundreds of thousands of artists, the majority independent.
Alongside the badge, all profiles are getting a new details section highlighting career milestones, release history, and touring activity, a kind of ingredient list for artist authenticity. The badge will begin appearing on profiles and in Search over the coming weeks.
Countdown pages have expanded to tens of thousands more artists. Anyone with at least 3,000 monthly active listeners can now publish one ahead of a release.
Instead of building pre-release momentum on separate platforms and hoping fans find their way to Spotify on launch day. Fans can pre-save an album, preview the tracklist, watch countdown videos, and shop merch, all surfaced across the artist profile, Search, Home, and a dedicated Upcoming Releases hub.
Spotify has released the data to back up the countdowns success - artists who publish at least 7 days before release see nearly twice as many pre-saves, and nearly 1 in 7 listeners who pre-save go on to become super listeners by the end of release week (Spotify, 2026).
Spotify is also giving artists more say over the ads that appear alongside their music. Not every ad feels like the right fit for every artist, and Spotify recognises that.
Through a new ad preferences tool in Spotify for Artists, artists can now flag which ad categories they'd prefer to appear less often next to their music. Spotify will then work to reduce ads from those categories where possible. The feature is managed through the artist settings page and is only accessible to team members with admin permissions.
Some big changes from the DSP. Spotify wants to be the place where music is not just consumed, but understood. Where fans know the people behind a song, trust who they're listening to, and feel genuine anticipation before a record drops.
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