Amazon Music has recently launched a novel feature called “Topics,” which is powered by AI and enables users to search for podcast episodes based on specific subjects discussed in them. This recent update, introduced on Tuesday, August 6, involves new Topic tags being displayed beneath the episode descriptions, thus facilitating users to find relevant podcast episodes on topics such as “Coffee” and “Dopamine,” apart from conventional categories such as Comedy and News.
The AI, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and human input, examines podcast transcripts and descriptions to pinpoint essential themes. Concurrently, human evaluators assign relevant tags to the episode pages. As of today, this functionality is available to all Amazon Music users in the U.S. on both iOS and Android platforms. Initially, it will focus on popular podcasts like The Daily, SmartLess, and This American Life, with future intentions to extend to additional materials, enriching the broader range of topics and associated episodes available.
In addition, Amazon Music has recently introduced a new feature called Maestro. Maestro is an AI playlist generator that creates playlists based on user prompts. This innovative tool was initially launched in beta in April. These AI advancements from Amazon come in the wake of their acquisition of Snackable AI, an audio content discovery engine, last year. The acquisition was made with the aim of enhancing Amazon's podcasting capabilities.