Videos for You
SpotifyI led the development of Spotify’s first personalized music-video playlist, helping listeners find something they wanted to watch based on the music they already loved.
As Spotify’s music-video catalog grew, we had an opportunity to help people discover videos alongside the songs they already listened to. The question was how to make watching feel like a natural part of using Spotify.
I led consumer strategy, programming and success metrics, working with engineering, design, editorial, research and data to build a daily playlist informed by each listener’s taste in music.
We started in November 2025 and launched in May 2026. Since then, we’ve continued testing the balance of familiar music and discovery, with particular attention to whether people keep watching over time.
Screenshots from my Spotify account.
How we approached the playlist
People already came to Spotify with a strong sense of what they liked to listen to, but that didn’t necessarily tell us what they would want to watch. A song you put on while commuting might not be the video you sit down with at home. We needed to make use of what we knew about listeners while being honest about what we still had to learn.
We started with audio taste because it gave us a useful foundation for personalization. Building a separate understanding of video taste would have added complexity before we knew enough about how people would use the experience. That decision helped us focus on a playlist we could ship, learn from and improve.
Programming the playlist meant thinking through how much should feel familiar and how much should be new. An artist someone already loves can make it easier to try watching, while a performance or cover they haven’t seen before can offer something they wouldn’t get from listening alone. Finding the right mix is a question we’ve continued to test.
I also spoke with teams across Spotify about what they could build if we understood the content of each video. Those conversations helped shape a shared classification capability for official videos, performances, covers and other formats, with uses across search, Home and the music tab.
What we shipped and kept learning
Videos for You became a daily place to find music videos selected for each listener. I wanted the experience to be useful for someone who already knew exactly which artists they loved, while still leaving space for a video to introduce them to something unexpected.
The launch gave us a way to learn from actual use. We looked beyond the first play to repeat watching and depth of engagement, and continued adjusting the programming. I think that is one of the interesting parts of building a new experience inside a familiar product: people arrive with established habits, and you have to understand where the new thing can fit into their lives.
As an artist, I’m also interested in what happens on the other side of that experience. Making a music video takes time and care, and artists often have to send fans somewhere else to watch it. Bringing video closer to listening gives that work another way to connect with people.
Spotify engineering, design, editorial, research and data teams.