Following the retirement of Groove Music Pass, Microsoft quietly introduced the ability to control Spotify using your voice with Cortana in Windows 10. The feature initially debuted as a feature in the Windows Insider Program last month, but it’s now available to all Windows 10 PCs running the Creators Update (1703) or newer.

The feature works through Cortana’s Spotify integration which is only limited to some regions — but you can easily set your PC’s region to the United States and then connect Cortana to Spotify to start using the smart assistant to control Spotify. Once connected, you can ask Cortana to start playing a certain playlist, track, or songs from an artist using your voice. If you happen to own the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker, you will be able to use the exact same commands are available on the speaker with Cortana on your PC.

Some of the example commands include:

Play Christmas music on Spotify

Play my discover weekly playlist on Spotify

Play <Artist/Track/Title/Genre/Mood> on <AppName>

Play some Drake

Play focus music

Play rock music

Play my tracks

Play the next track

Pause/Play

Cortana’s Spotify integration can also tell you what song is currently playing on Spotify. This could be considered a fairly good replacement for Cortana’s music recognition feature which has been removed since the retirement of Groove Music — but it only works with songs that are playing only on Spotify.

Thanks for the tip, Mohammad!

Tagged with Cortana, Spotify, Windows 10