Ask Music” is the name of the AI prompt-based conversational radio in YouTube Music, and it’s seeing wider availability, including internationally, in recent weeks.
The feature appears as a purple card in the Home feed, like Create a radio or the banner advertising the availability of the June – August 2024 recap. Tapping launches a fullscreen chat UI with accepted prompts ranging from a few words — 80s inspired indie, Dreamy synthpop, Saddest songs, etc. — to sentences.
After a few seconds, you get a playlist card with YTM translating that query into a shorter title and longer description. It auto-plays the first track by default with the ability to save to your library, and provide feedback.
Like most people who use YouTube Music, I was grandfathered in after Google Music shut down and have YouTube premium bundled with it.
So with that, it absolutely plays when not in focus and has no ads.
That said, it absolutely is just recommending the same old things that usually show up on my playlists.