Streaming platform Spotify is expanding its catalog of audio content and adding audio versions of long magazine articles to the app. The new feature will be part of the Premium subscription, while free users will be able to purchase articles individually.
Streaming platform Spotify is expanding its catalog of audio content and adding audio versions of long magazine articles to the app. The new feature will be part of the Premium subscription, while free users will be able to purchase articles individually.
According to TechCrunch, citing a company statement, users will be able to access over 650 English-language long-reads from well-known publications, including Wired, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and GQ. The materials were prepared by Spotify’s internal audiobook team.
Premium subscribers will be able to listen to these materials within their standard 15-hour audiobook limit each month. Spotify free users will be able to purchase individual articles for $1.99 per long read.
The company uses a combination of human voices and artificial intelligence technologies for voiceovers. Spotify says that audio generated by digital voices will be labeled so that users can clearly understand the origin of the voiceover.
With shorter text content, the streaming giant is trying to form a habit among users to consume longer audio formats and eventually convert them into listeners of audiobooks, which are a more marginal product for the platform.
«By adding shorter content to our range, we are reaching out to our audience to help them develop healthy listening habits that will lead to increased engagement with books over time,» said Colleen Prendergast, head of licensing at Spotify Audiobooks, in a statement.
This initiative is a continuation of Spotify’s active expansion into the AI audio market. Recently, the company has introduced AI tools for creating podcasts (similar to the capabilities of Google’s NotebookLM service), generating audiobooks for authors, as well as tools for creating AI covers and music remixes.
Previously, the NUAM analytical community, which tracks Ukrainian releases on streaming services, estimated that some AI-generated tracks became unavailable on Spotify in 2025. According to their data, this is 13,36% of all Ukrainian tracks.
