News

Microsoft Wants To Purchase Discord And We Know Why

Published

5 years ago

March 29, 2021

microsoft wants to purchase discord and we know why

According to multiple independent reports, Microsoft is interested in acquiring Discord, an instant messaging and digital distribution platform that’s especially popular among Gen Z gamers.

While the two companies are still far away from striking a deal, Microsoft seems to be the only potential buyer at the moment, and the software giant is willing to pay up to $10 billion to add Discord to its portfolio.

But why is one of the largest companies in the world interested in spending so much money to buy what was once the alt-right’s favorite chat app? The answer may surprise you: Microsoft isn’t really interested in the platform itself; it’s interested in the community of around 150 million monthly active users.

“Creation, creation, creation — the next 10 years is going to be as much about creation as it is about consumption and about the community around it, so it’s not creating alone,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “If the last 10 years has been about consumption — we’re shopping more, we’re browsing more, we’re binge-watching more — there is creation behind every one of those.”

Discord

Discord is a huge community of content creators, and many of its users play video games on Microsoft’s video game consoles. In the past, Microsoft had attempted to create a place for gamers to “come together to talk about games, watch games, watch others play games,” as Xbox chief Phil Spencer put it, by purchasing live streaming platform Beam and renaming it Mixer, but that effort turned out to be a failure.

The difference between mixer and Discord is that the latter platform is already loved by its target audience, so Microsoft wouldn’t face an uphill struggle and could simply focus on tightening the integration between Xbox, PC, and Discord.

Also Read: Tinder Will Soon Let You Background Check Your Matches

“There’s a big opportunity to bundle Discord’s premium offering, Nitro, into the Game Pass service to drive more subscriptions from the last reported 18 million,” pointed out Bloomberg Intelligence Analyst Matthew Kanterman.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft has been looking for its next big acquisition for quite some time now. The company attempted to purchase both TikTok and Pinterest but failed each time. It will be interesting to see if things will work out on the third try.

News

Spotify Will Now Tell You If Your Favorite Artist Isn’t Real

The streaming platform is introducing an “AI Personas” label and cutting AI-generated artist profiles from its recommendations.

Published

4 days ago

August 12, 2026

Nour Nasir

Spotify

These days, the question of whether the artist you’re streaming actually exists is no longer hypothetical. Spotify intends to combat this issue by introducing a label called “AI Personas” for artist profiles that present an AI-generated, human-like identity rather than a real person. More consequentially, it will also keep those profiles out of its editorial and algorithmic recommendations by default.

From mid-September, listeners will start seeing an AI Persona badge on artist profiles, appearing in the banner and About section, in Search, and on track rows across playlists. Tapping the badge reveals whether the artist disclosed the AI identity themselves, or whether Spotify’s review team made the determination after examining the profile.

That distinction matters, because Spotify is not relying on self-disclosure alone. Artists can flag their own profiles as AI Personas through Spotify for Artists as of today, but the platform will also review profiles whose public identity – including name and imagery – appears to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities. The rollout begins with artists who have met defined audience thresholds, so the labels cover the vast majority of profiles listeners actually visit. Artists badged by Spotify’s reviewers will be notified and can self-disclose or appeal, and in the coming months listeners will be able to report suspected AI Personas themselves.

Also Read: Shokz OpenFit Pro Review: Open-Ear Audio Finally Grows Up

The company’s recommendations policy is also being tweaked. Music from AI Personas will not surface in a listener’s personalized recommendations unless, for example, they follow the artist. Spotify says all artists have a creative choice in how they present themselves, but its programming is focused on elevating music from authentic artists building careers in music.

The badge concerns identity, not production of the music itself. An artist who uses AI tools to make music is a separate question, one Spotify addresses through AI Credits and SongDNA. The AI Persona label sits alongside those features, plus Verified by Spotify and Artist Profile Protection, in what the company has made one of its top priorities this year: letting listeners trust that the artist behind the music is who they claim to be.