Spotify is keeping its promise to grow to 1 billion active users by 2030 while further leaning into AI.
At the company’s investor day in New York on Thursday, executives laid out a planned path to reach that number and $100 billion in annual revenue, including new features such as AI-generated personalized podcasts, the ability to use AI to create user-generated covers, remixes, and more. Spotify also plans to continue creating more paid add-on services and subscriptions alongside its audiobook offering, which they say is one of the most engaged segments on the platform.
In the beginning, the company’s motto was access, as stated by co-CEO Gustav Söderström. Spotify has since moved on to personalization with curated playlists and more. Next is “Generation”. Utilize AI tools to create content on the platform.
“We are entering a generative era, where experiences are no longer simply selected from a catalog. Experiences are shaped in real time based on each user’s preferences, context, and intent. There is no media player today that accommodates both public and private content. In other words, there is no media player for the generative era, and we believe that Spotify will be that era,” said Gustav Söderström, co-CEO of Spotify.
Personalized podcasts and user-generated covers and remixes join Spotify’s existing personalization products, including AI DJ and Prompted Playlists, which create curated playlists for users. Spotify also announced a desktop app that allows users to create daily audio briefings and podcasts based on their email or schedule.
The aim of leaning into AI and offering more personalized products is to improve retention, conversion to paid memberships, and time spent on the platform as Spotify understands individuals better. You can also use AI to add more content in each market’s language and localize faster.
Nicole Barrow, Spotify’s vice president of design, speaks on stage during the Spotify Investor Day 2026 Morning Presentation at Highline Studios on May 21, 2026 in New York City.
As it stands, the company last reported 761 million monthly active users worldwide, of which 293 million are subscribers. Annual revenue in 2025 was approximately $18.5 billion. Spotify highlighted the potential for future user growth in markets such as Brazil, India, and the Philippines.
Amidst the AI buzz, the company also announced that its audiobook division is on track to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue from audiobook+ subscriptions in July of this year. Paid users already have access to 15 hours of audiobook content for free, and the add-on Audiobooks+ subscription gives you access to an additional 15 hours. Spotify says more than 1 million users have already paid for audiobooks in less than a year.
We’re also seeing the deepest ongoing engagement at Spotify, a metric that the company will focus on going forward.
“The number of times a customer returns to us in a month and the number of devices they use may be one of the most important metrics we monitor,” said Nerdstrom.
The company also announced Thursday the creation of additional add-on tiers to its audiobook products that offer more time at a higher price. This comes as part of a plan to increase the revenue generated by users who are already subscribed. The company recently introduced fitness streaming videos on its platform through a partnership with Peloton. Executives said they believe the company has “the potential to become a meaningful vertical market in its own right.” Executives also said they are eyeing several more areas in the future.
Podcasting has also made “significant progress,” according to CFO Christian Ruiga, who said gross margins for the segment were “significantly negative” in 2021 and will increase to 20% in 2026. He added that the company expects gross margins to be “on the path to 40%,” which will be driven by both first-party and third-party content.
Further price increases are planned in the future with additional add-ons and new features, but executives say previous increases have resulted in little churn.
“You can expect us to continue on this journey, but we always want our users to win,” Nordstrom said of the price increase.
For the second and third quarters, the company will adapt to these new realities by increasing spending on marketing and research and development and potentially allocating capital to M&A, while maintaining its “build-first strategy,” Luiga said.
But Spotify, which has taken numerous cost-cutting measures in the past, said it will now rely on AI to improve efficiency. “We no longer expand by adding more people, but by increasing the influence of the people we already have,” said one executive.
CFO Christian Ruiga speaks on stage during the Spotify Investor Day 2026 Morning Presentation held at Highline Studios in New York City on May 21, 2026.
