Spotify is reportedly testing a new feature for podcast listeners on its service, users will see a vertical podcast feed display similar to Instagram or TikTok.
According to a report from TechCrunch, the podcast's audio news feed will show short 60-second video clips that users can scroll through vertically.
Reporting from Gizmochina, the feature will reportedly use a machine learning model that has been trained over 100 hours of audio to make it capable of automatically recommending selected audio clips to individual users.
Spotify says the feature comes from technology it acquired when it bought Podz last year for around $49 million.
Podz itself is a startup that creates audio news feeds to help address the issue of podcasting ability to make it easy to find. As such, Podz uses Instagram Reels/TikTok like vertical scroll formats for this process.
The real innovation behind this feature is the ability to select audio clips of the show in a way that doesn't require podcast creators to create their own clips. As of now, the feature is being tested in several regions where users are given a dedicated "Podcasts" button within the app itself.
By clicking on it, the user will be taken to an audio news feed with a vertical scroll. Interestingly, the audio clip is also transcribed on the screen as it plays.
"At Spotify, we regularly run a number of tests to improve our user experience. Some of those tests eventually pave the way for a broader experience and others serve only as important lessons. For the rest, we don't have any further updates to share at this time, " said Spotify.