Is Spotify Bringing Ads to Premium Subscriptions?

This week there has been a lot of news going around social media about Ads coming to Spotify’s premium subscriptions. But is it really true? Here’s what you need to know.

Content Creators are Mad

I’ve seen no less than 3 different creators post videos and hundreds of people posting comments saying that as soon as Spotify rolls out ads to its premium tier they would be unsubscribing. I’ve also seen a number of creators make videos of possible alternatives, but why is this outcry happening? Did we really get ads on premium before freaking Hi Fi?! It’s literally all I’ve wanted for years now.

So are there Ads on Spotify Premium?

Well, it turns out that recently, Spotify had a “quote, unquote” issue where a number of its premium users were actually hearing ads when listening to music. Android Authority took a poll that showed around 30% of the readers heard the ads on their account with the issue dating back to February. Spotify has since then issued an apology saying this was never meant to happen.

Spotify Adding AI to Ad Initiatives

This year Spotify has been trying to pivot its efforts to gain as many advertisers as possible. This comes after its Q4 earnings report says it’s up 16% in revenue QoQ. The company recently announced that it was going to utilize AI to help advertisers create and customize ads on the platform as well as being able to view which users are logged-in and engaged within their campaigns metrics to better segment and target them. The company has also rolled out ads entirely generated by AI so while there has been no confirmation about what caused the “glitch” we can at least piece together that this ad initiative rollout is very close to when these problems occurred.

The Conclusion

To date there have not been any whispers of including ads on premium subscriptions other than with podcasts but comment below if you’ve seen any different and I’ll go grab my pitchfork and join you.