Prime Highlight
- Spotify has introduced Listening Activityand Jam features to let users share what they’re listening to in real time and invite friends to listen together.
- The update aims to make the app more interactive, allowing users to explore music through friends without leaving Spotify.
Key Facts
- Listening Activityappears in the Messages section, letting users play tracks, save them, or react with emojis directly from chats.
- Jam sessionsallow Premium users to co-control shared playlists in real time, with Free users able to join by invitation; the rollout will reach iOS and Android fully by early February.
Background
Spotify has introduced new social tools that allow users to share what they are listening to in real time and invite friends to listen together, as the company steps up efforts to make the app more interactive.
The update adds Listening Activity to the Messages section, where users can see what their friends are currently streaming. To activate the feature, users must go to Settings and turn on “listening activity” under the Privacy & Social menu. Once enabled, the music a user plays will appear at the top of their chats.
By tapping on a friend’s listening activity, users can instantly play the track, save it to their library, open more options, or react with an emoji. This feature gives Spotify users a quick way to explore music through their friends without leaving the app.
Spotify has also expanded access to its Jam feature, which allows people to listen together and add songs to a shared queue. Premium users can now tap the Jam option in Messages to send a request to friends. If the other user accepts, they become the Jam host, and both can control the playlist in real time. Free users can join Jam sessions when a Premium user invites them.
The company said Listening Activity and Jam requests will roll out on both iOS and Android in markets where Messages is available, with a full rollout expected by early February. Since the tools sit inside Messages, only users aged 16 and above can use them.
Spotify launched Messages in August 2025 to bring social interactions into the app. Until now, most users shared music links on other platforms. With these changes, Spotify hopes to improve user engagement, reduce app switching, and encourage more people to upgrade to paid plans.
At present, Messages only support one-to-one chats and are limited to users who have already shared content before. While messages are encrypted during transfer and storage, they do not yet support end-to-end encryption.
