YouTube Music added several new ways to discover songs this week. New features include AI-generated radio and Shazam-like tools.

The radio feature uses AI to create custom radio stations from text prompts. For example, users can request “Summertime Jam” or “Catchy Pop Choruses. This feature is currently being rolled out to select premium users in the US.

The custom radio station feature is similar to AI playlist generators released by Spotify and Amazon Music. Google is working on a YouTube Music extension for the Gemini AI Assistant that does essentially the same thing, but requires access to YouTube Music from outside the app.

The radio feature brings that tool inside the app and does not appear to be related to Gemini.

If you have access to the new feature, you should see a card in your home feed that says “Ask for music any way you like.” Tapping on the card will open a conversational UI where you can enter a text prompt. Music will also be suggested.

YouTube typically tests new features with Premium users, but it is unclear when the AI Radio feature will be released to other users.

The Shazam version of YouTube Music allows users to search for music by sound. Unlike the radio feature, this Shazam-like tool is officially rolling out to iOS and Android users. We have tested it, but it has not yet reached our accounts.

If you do have access, you can tap the “search” icon to find the music recognition tool. When the search tool pops up, you should see a waveform icon.

With this tool, you can find the name of a song by singing it or letting the app listen to the song playing. Interestingly, you can also hum a song on the app. This would have been helpful when I was trying to remember the name of Joel Corey's “Head & Heart” song for my son. All I had was this: bum bum da bum, bum bum da bum.

Don't ask me how long it took me to actually find that song.