Spotify acquires machine learning company to improve recommendations

Music streaming service Spotify has acquired French company Niland. It specializes in finding music and making recommendations. The company uses machine learning for this.

Niland, founded in 2013, claims to be involved in two areas. This involves estimating the extent to which numbers are similar and classifying numbers. To determine the similarities between numbers using artificial intelligence, the company claims to generate a ‘signature’ from each number that can then be compared.

Spotify writes that the Niland team will be housed in its New York office, where it will work to improve recommendations within the software. In his own announcement, Niland refers to the existing recommendation services within Spotify, such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar. These are playlists that change content periodically based on users’ preferences.

It is not the first time Spotify has taken over a company to improve this part of its service. For example, in 2014 it took over The Echo Nest, followed by Sonalytic and MightyTV.