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Gustav Söderström

Co-President, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Spotify Technology

Search every verified Gustav Söderström interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Gustav Söderström, who was named co-CEO of Spotify alongside Alex Nordström, discussed the company’s strategy and recent initiatives in two June 2026 interviews. At the Axios House at Cannes, he addressed the announcement of Reserved, a ticketing service that gives premium users access to concert tickets through a partnership with Live Nation. Söderström said the company decided to help musicians sell tickets because touring is a significant revenue source for many creators, especially early in their careers. He also stated that Spotify does not aim to maximize total engagement, but instead focuses on the number of times per month a user returns, describing that as a healthier metric. In a separate podcast interview, Söderström described how he prepared for the CEO role over three years by gradually taking on day-to-day responsibilities as co-president alongside Nordström, while Daniel Ek remained CEO. He discussed Spotify’s approach to artificial intelligence, saying the company aims to give users control over the algorithm rather than using generative AI to maximize addictive behavior. Söderström noted that because most of Spotify’s revenue comes from subscriptions rather than advertising, the company does not face the same pressure to maximize time spent. He also cited a third-party survey in which Spotify users reported lower rates of regret for time spent on the platform compared to users of other large platforms.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I think when you pay with your own money that is very very well aligned with optimizing what is good for the user whereas if in a pure advertising based model your incentives are clearly to maximize time spent at any cost. So I think it's a luxury for us because most of our revenue come from subscription to not have that pressure.”

“I think the thing that keeps me up at night is not surprising, what AI truly means in the limit. I'm pretty sure that media habits are going to change because of AI. And so I don't think it's an option to just sit still. But the way I think about it is the world moves in microwaves. You get some new technology. It often causes a bunch of havoc. Then there's some new business model that emerges and then things change.”

“We surveyed our users through a third party anonymously... We asked the question like how do you feel about the time you spent using Spotify... But then we also asked the opposite question. How much of your time did you regret afterwards?... We were actually the lowest regret content sort of on the internet... But what surprised me was the opposite... on many of the big platforms people regretted almost 60% of the ti”

“There is a promise for generative AI to be the most addictive algorithm you have ever heard of because now we can understand you so deeply. There is potential for darkness over there. But what we're trying to say is like there is, but it's a dual-use technology. You could choose to do something else with generative AI. And so what we're choosing to do for example is to give back users control over the algorithm.”

“I think the premium model is really key to Spotify. As I said earlier today, the competition for Spotify when we started wasn't other big tech companies, it was piracy. And there people had all the world's music for free, no advertising, and offline sync. If you think about it, they had the full thing, right? So that's what we were competing with. So we had to compete with that and we we we just had to be better. And”

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