Pandora launches its own smart voice assistant for mobile apps

Pandora, the largest streaming music provider in the U.S, yesterday announced the launch of its own native smart voice assistant for its mobile apps. This new feature called Voice Mode will allow users to control Pandora mobile apps using voice commands. Supported voice commands include:

• Control requests to change stations, control volume, skip or pause music, and other basic navigation commands.
• Thematic requests delivering personalized music based on each user’s unique tastes, moods, and favorite activities like “play something for my workout” or “play music for relaxing.”
• Open-ended requests like “play something different,” “play something I like” or “play more like this.”
• Basic requests for a specific artist, song, station, podcast or playlist like “play new music by…” or “play my happy jams playlist.”
• Interactive requests like “what song is this?” or directional requests like “add this song to my party playlist” or “I like this” to give a thumbs-up.

Like ‘Hey Cortana’ or ‘Hey Siri’, you need to say the phrase “Hey Pandora” and then follow it with your actual request. Pandora is now rolling out this Voice Mode feature to iOS and Android users.