AI DJs Completely Kill My Groove

I usually can’t pinpoint the moment I stop using a software feature, with most tools drifting out of fashion without an expiration date. That’s not the case with YouTube Music’s “Beyond the Beat,” an AI-generated DJ that explains songs to you.

YouTube Music is my music-streaming service of choice. And since I’m a software reporter, I always enable the beta features available through YouTube Labs, which include Beyond the Beat. YouTube’s AI DJ randomly interjects for about 30 seconds between songs, teeing up the vibe shift and providing context about the next track.

More listeners are encountering synthetic commentary built into their music streaming apps. While YouTube launched this experimental AI DJ in 2025, Spotify first introduced a similar tool back in 2023. It doubled down on its AI DJ efforts in November, expanding the different personalities available to users and adding more controls over the commentary.

These AI DJs aren’t just annoying. Their attempts to provide helpful context and mimic human candor ultimately fall flat. Lucky for me, both features are optional and avoidable.

After months of leaving it enabled, a bad experience with Beyond the Beat this week pushed me to swear off AI DJs altogether. I was listening to a pop divas playlist as part of my morning workout and got slapped with 30 seconds of exposition after a Slayyyter track:

“Hey Boy delivers that high-energy surge perfectly, but we're shifting our focus to a sharper, more visceral reality. In Rock Music, Charli XXC [sic] weaves in a biting, dark sense of humor regarding the physical toll of her relentless 2024 and 2025 touring. She turns the genuine nerve damage she sustained on the road into a strange sort of battle scar, reclaiming the exhaustion of a weary party girl as a badge of honor. It's an unflinching look at the cost behind the spectacle, where the grind of the industry becomes the actual subject matter. Here is Rock Music by Charli XXC [sic].”