[Changelog] November 21, 2025

Been a hot minute since my last update, so here's what's new.

Updated AI Genre Detector

A couple years back we rolled out an AI genre detector based on research done by the MTG team in Barcelona. Their model was based on 519 Discogs genres, which was fairly limiting as some core SubmitHub genres like solo piano, organic house, and phonk were missing.

So, I spent a few weeks trying to train / extend the model with ~85 new genres. The results were good, and so I've rolled it out to the masses! You can read more about everything that went into the update here.

Folks seem to like the new model a bit more:

• 91.3% find the results "helpful" vs. 87% for the previous version
• 91% of the time they end up going with the suggested genres (vs. 85% previously)

Definitely a big improvement!

Locking Playlist Positions

A few curators managed to twist my leg and get me to code a feature that I'll admit is pretty handy: position locking.

• Curators can now "lock" a song in their playlist
• When locked, a song will hold its position - regardless of what happens around it
• Positions are updated/enforced every time a song is shared, removed, or rearranged within SubmitHub
• The "gotcha" is that I can't detect activity *outside* of SubmitHub. So, if a curator changes things around within the Spotify app, those changes don't reflect on SubmitHub until our next update
• Similarly, if a curator *removes* a song using the Spotify app that was supposed to be locked, the next update will add it back at the locked position

Miscellaneous

• When uploading a song, we now ask whether a song is pure AI, half AI, or all human. That extra bit of granularity should help!
• New AI filter checkbox
• Improved the voice-to-text function and added compatibility for browsers that don't have native support (eg, Firefox)
• Wrote a script to clean up stale AWS audio data (more than 10 terabytes removed!)
• When doing free submissions, standard approval rates displayed alongside premium to avoid misleading
• Cloudfront URLs now get a clean "cdn.submithub" or "img.submithub" instead of gobbledigook

In the Pipeline

Right now my main priority is rolling out an update to the AI detector that's a bit more resilient to manipulation. Because the feature is public, a lot of folks have been working out ways to "trick" it. It's a bit of a cat and mouse game, but I'm making some progress and will likely have that update within the next few days!

Oh, and Black Friday is next week. We're definitely going to have a steep discount for that 🎉🦃