# Spotify Growth, Meta AI Features, Google Privacy Updates

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-02-11

## Transcript

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Spotify hits a record 751 million monthly users.
I'm Imran Sheikh and your daily crunch for Wednesday starts right now.
Facebook announced new AI powered features on Tuesday designed to let users express themselves in more playful ways across the platform.
The updates include animated profile pictures, photo restyling tools for stories and memories, and the ability to add animated backgrounds to text posts.
As Meta works to maintain Facebook's relevance among younger users on its flagship app, it's likely betting that these new features will deliver a more personalized experience that appeals to Gen Z.
The new animated profile picture feature applies motion effects to static photos, making the subject appear to be waving, making a heart shape, or wearing a virtual party hat.
To achieve the best results, Facebook recommends using a clear photo of a single person facing the camera.
Photos can be pulled directly from a user's camera role or from images already on the platform.
The company also plans to add more animation options throughout the year.
Facebook's also enhancing its stories, short photo and video posts that disappear after 24 hours, and memories, a feature that resurfaces posts from the same date in previous years, with restyle, a tool that uses Meta AI to reimagine the look of user-uploaded images.
There are also options to adjust moods, lighting, and colors, and to swap in new backdrops, such as a beach or a cityscape.
To spice up text posts, Facebook's also gradually rolling out animated backgrounds.
By clicking on the new Rainbow A icon, users can choose from a variety of still inanimated scenes, such as falling leaves or rolling ocean waves to make their posts stand out in the feed.
The company says that seasonal backgrounds are coming soon.
As part of Safer Internet Day, Google unveiled updates to its results about you and non-consensual explicit image removal tools.
The results about you tool already allows users to remove search results containing their phone number, email address, or home address, and it can now also be used to request the removal of results that include information such as a driver's license, passport, or social security number, the company said in the update Tuesday.
You can access the tool in the Google app by tapping your Google account photo and selecting Results About You.
Now, if it's your first time using the tool, you need to click Get Started and then add the personal contact information you want to monitor.
You'll then be prompted to add your government ID numbers.
Existing users can add their ID numbers and select which ones they want to monitor.
Once you've confirmed your details, Google will automatically monitor search results and notify you if it finds results that contain your information.
Google notes that removing this information from search doesn't remove it from the web entirely, but that doing so can help your information remain private.
The update is rolling out in the good old US of A over the coming days.
Google plans to bring it to additional regions in the future.
The Tech Giant also announced that it's making it easier to request the removal of non-consensual explicit images on search.
Now, users just have to click on the three dots on an image, select remove result, then tap it shows a sexual image of me.
Additionally, you no longer need to report images one by one, as you can now select and submit requests for multiple images from search results using a single form.
Users can also track the status of all requests in one place within the Results About You Hub.
Swedish music streaming giant Spotify saw its user numbers peak last quarter, driven by its year-end wrapped campaign, which rounds up stats and listening highlights for users and new features on its free tier.
The company said it saw a record 38 million new users in the fourth quarter, taking its total to 750 million monthly active users, up 11% from a year earlier.
Paying subscribers increased by 10% to 290 million in the quarter.
Spotify said the wrapped campaign resulted in more than 300 million engaged users and 630 million shares on social media in 56 languages.
Revenue came in at 4.53 billion euros, 5.39 billion dollars, about 7% more than a year earlier, thanks to an 8% increase in subscription revenue.
However, the company's ad-supported business saw revenue dip by 4% to 518 million euros, 616.
Gross margin, an important metric investors watch for indications of improvements to Spotify's profitability, improved by 83 basis points to a record high of 33.1% as the company sold more ads for podcasts and music.
The solid performance comes as Spotify's new co-CEOs, Gustav Soderstrom and Alex Nordstrom take the reins from co-founder Daniel Eck, and they'll now oversee a business that has far outgrown what it initially set out to do.
After launching as a music streaming pure play, Spotify has expanded its remit to include podcasts, audiobooks, and even physical bookstores.
You can even use Spotify to book tickets to concerts or explore the story behind songs.
And of course, the company's also added AI features like an AI DJ and AI-generated playlists, and now let's users exclude tracks from being recommended to help them better tailor what they listen to.
And that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Ivan Meita, Aisha Malik, Lauren Forrestall, and more awesome Techrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
Same tech time, same crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.
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