It’s time to unpack Spotify Wrapped. Here’s how the music streamer compiled your 2025 recap

NEW YORK (AP) — The end of 2025 is almost upon us. And it’s time to unpack Spotify Wrapped.

On Wednesday, the music streaming giant delivered its annual recap — giving its hundreds of millions of users worldwide a look at the top songs, artists, podcasts and other audio that filled their ears over the past year (give or take a month and some change).

Spotify isn’t the only platform — or music streamer — to roll out a yearly glimpse of data collected from consumers’ online lives. But since its launch about a decade ago, Wrapped has become one of the most anticipated. And Spotify is billing the 2025 edition to be its biggest yet, with a host of new features it hopes may address some disappointments users had last year.

So, what goes into pulling together Wrapped, and what’s new this year? Here’s what to know.

How much of the year does Spotify Wrapped cover?

To compile Wrapped, Spotify collects listening data from Jan. 1 through around mid-November.

That gives the company time to solidify finishing touches and deliver its recap to users by early December. But it also means your late November and December streaming habits won’t be included, which may be why your favorite holiday songs aren’t on the list, or other year-end hits.

What goes into getting top songs, artists and more?

For top songs, artists and — for the first time this year — albums to show up on Spotify Wrapped, the platform looks at a mix of what you stream and how long you listen for.

According to Spotify, users must listen to at least 30 tracks for over 30 seconds each to get top songs. For artists, users need to listen to at least five unique artists for over 30 seconds. And for top album, users need to have listened to at least 70% of the tracks on one album.

The company confirmed that data is collected evenly across all platforms — and that streaming in “offline” mode will also be counted, as long as the device connects back to the internet a few weeks before Wrapped’s launch. Listening using Spotify’s “private mode” features, meanwhile, won’t contribute to any rankings, but will still count toward total time spent on the platform. And Spotify says “background sounds,” like white noise, are filtered out.

When does Spotify start building Wrapped each year? What’s new in 2025?

Marc Hazan, senior vice president of marketing and partnerships at Spotify, said his team started thinking about 2025 Wrapped the day last year’s recap was launched.

“It’s a full year production that touches, without question, every function within Spotify,” Hazan told The Associated Press. On day one, he noted, that includes looking at what users think of the Wrapped that just dropped.

Many Spotify subscribers were quick to share disappointments about 2024’s recap — with some complaining that Wrapped was too minimalist last year. Others took to social media with memes mocking features that didn’t seem to hit the mark.

The look and feel of Wrapped evolves each year, and Hazan notes the development of the 2025 edition was largely driven by last year’s feedback.

“We’ve really taken the feedback to heart — and fueled what we think is the freshest, most action-packed Wrapped experience we’ve ever done,” he added.

That includes returning music genres, which were missing in 2024’s Wrapped. The platform is also introducing top albums and audiobooks, as well as playcounts for each song that makes your annual playlist. And the experience is more gamified this year. There’s a prompt for users to guess their top song before it’s revealed and a “listening age” — which takes a stab at guessing how old your music taste is, based on when your favorite tunes were released.

Spotify has also unveiled “Wrapped Party,” a feature that allows users to compare their listening habits with friends who also use the app — and win their own award-like titles within the group.

How is AI used?

Among other backlashes Spotify received last year was speculation over how much artificial intelligence played a role in compiling Wrapped.

The most visible use of AI in Spotify’s 2024 Wrapped was an accompanying podcast powered by generative AI. Spotify didn’t repeat the podcast this year but is introducing another feature, Archive, which uses a large language model to break down your listening on specific days.

That’s the most AI-focused part of 2025’s Wrapped, Hazan said. But the technology is still more broadly supplemented across Spotify’s technical operations today, including in scaling the reach of its annual recap.

“Rooted into Wrapped is human creativity,” Hazan said, stressing that hundreds of people work on pulling together the recap each year. Technology like AI, he noted, helps “fast track” and “enhance” the product so it can reach the platform’s more than 700 million users.

What does Wrapped say about data tracking more broadly?

Spotify is far from the only company to track what users do on its platform — and feed back some of that data, with a nostalgic twist, at the end of the year.

Streaming rival Apple Music rolled out its annual “Replay” on Tuesday. And YouTube this week unveiled its new “Recap,” which similarly breaks down its listeners’ music habits. Social media platforms, Google search and even dictionaries also offer their own year-end reflections.

These recaps may signal more transparency for users, because they can see some data in their hands. And products like Wrapped have become particularly popular because they’re personalized and now designed to share online — leaving many to look forward to it as an “annual ritual” of sorts, notes Yakov Bart, a marketing professor at Northeastern University.

Still, one concern is the normalization of now-constant “tracking of digital footprints that consumers leave online,” he added.

“What Spotify Wrapped is able to do is essentially package this tracked data into the form of entertainment,” Bart said. “It reframes all this digital tracking that’s constantly happening behind the scenes into something that’s fun … And so, instead of kind of feeling under surveillance, users (are) basically feeling seen.”