SAN FRANCISCO, United States — Spotify on Wednesday launched new instruments for artists and songwriters, with a specific give attention to video codecs which can be seen as more and more important because the world’s greatest audio streaming service struggles to interrupt even.

The Swedish-owned firm additionally unveiled a major revamp to supply a extra interactive interface, together with the choice to listen to track previews and supply extra personalised suggestions utilizing synthetic intelligence.

At a live-streamed advertising and marketing occasion, Spotify additionally introduced that it surpassed 500 million month-to-month energetic customers, together with 205 million paying subscribers on the finish 2022, with 10 million creators.

“Once we based Spotify, the music business was in a freefall. So the basic query everybody was asking was, is the music business doomed or might or not it’s reimagined and nonetheless be a sustainable profession for proficient artists world wide?” stated Spotify founder Daniel Ek.

“And now, greater than 15 years later, we all know that reply is sure. Increasingly more artists are discovering success by way of streaming,” stated Ek who has handed over on a regular basis duties at Spotify to co-presidents Alex Norstrom and Gustav Soderstrom.

The platform, launched in 2006, has shortly change into the world’s primary audio streaming service, however has struggled to show the viability of its enterprise mannequin.

In an try and develop past music, Spotify lately has invested closely in podcasts, audiobooks and dwell audio.

With the revamp, Spotify stated it will be simpler for artists to promote merchandise and tickets to concert events and different dwell occasions.

They may also be capable of add 30-second movies to their profile and album web page to compete with clips posted on social networks like TikTok or Instagram, which “do not assure that the viewers will then go take heed to the entire track,” stated Sulinna Ong, a Spotify govt.

“Streaming has already democratized entry to music for listeners. With these new instruments, we’re democratizing entry to advertising and marketing for artists,” she stated.

The corporate, which stated in January that it was slicing virtually six p.c of its workforce to cut back prices, posted a web lack of 430 million euros for 2022.

Spotify has recurrently posted annual losses, regardless of sturdy subscriber development and having had a head begin on its rivals equivalent to Apple Music and Amazon Music.