Amazon Music on Tuesday announced the launch of a new AI-powered feature called “Topics” that lets users search for podcast episodes by the specific topics that are discussed in the episode.
When you visit a podcast episode page, look for new topic tags underneath the episode description. Tapping on a tag will reveal a list of related podcast episodes on the same topic. This lets you find podcasts on specific topics like “coffee” or “dopamine” in addition to the usual categories like comedy or news.
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The company explained that the new feature is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) but also relies on human labor: AI analyzes podcast transcripts and descriptions to identify key topics, and then human team members determine relevant tags to add to episode pages.
The feature is available to all Amazon Music users in the U.S. on iOS and Android devices starting today. The feature will roll out to popular podcasts on Amazon Music, including The Daily, SmartLess and This American Life. The company also plans to expand topic coverage to more podcast content, which will broaden the range of topics and improve the list of related podcast episodes.
Another AI-powered feature Amazon Music is adding is Maestro, an AI playlist generator that creates playlists based on user prompts. The feature was released in beta in April this year. The new AI feature follows Amazon's acquisition of audio content search engine Snackable AI last year to power its podcasting business.