For its 10th anniversary, YouTube Music has received an update to better compete with Spotify and other services. The main innovation is Taste Match playlists, which combine the musical tastes of several people and are updated daily. It's similar to the popular Spotify Blend feature.
YouTube Music is also expanding its integration with the music industry. Through a partnership with Bandsintown, the service will start to show upcoming concerts and ticket sales directly while watching music videos and Shorts. Users will also receive notifications about new releases and official artist merchandise.
The update will also add social elements: you can now leave comments on albums and playlists, and listeners will receive badges like "First to Watch" or "Top Listener." Artists will be able to celebrate milestones in the form of the number of views of their videos - from 100 thousand to 1 billion.
The company also said that the service's catalog now exceeds 300 million tracks, including studio recordings, covers, remixes and live performances. For comparison, Spotify has 100 million tracks. In addition, YouTube Music users have created more than 4 billion music playlists, of which 1.8 billion are public.
By the way, the audience of YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, together with test subscriptions, grew from 100 million in February 2024 to over 125 million in March 2025.