We have got our hands on a sneak peek video highlighting some of the new features in VirtualDJ 2026, which appear to include automatic lyric extraction from songs using AI, a natural language AI set building feature, and vastly improved effects.
Here’s what we gleaned from the short teaser video we saw (which we discuss in the live show above)…
New VirtualDJ Features For 2026
1. AI-generated lyrics
Look on the waveforms and in the video box. It appears that VirtualDJ is extracting the lyrics from your songs and displaying them next to the waveforms in the software, so you can see what lyrics are coming up and where you are at in the song. They’re also available in the Video Player as an extra option for what to show on your venue’s screens.
It does appear that there’s nothing special about the music files here; they don’t have lyrics embedded or anything like that – it’s simply AI doing its thing. Which, of course, will be fine as long as it gets them right, but could lead to some unintentionally humorous moments if it doesn’t.
2. AI Suggestions for building playlists
The next feature in the teaser video shows a real question being typed into the search box and VirtualDJ constructing a playlist based upon the prompt, i.e. “build me a 90s hip-hop set” or “Good playlist for an eight-year-old’s party”. What’s also interesting in the demo is that the comment field also appears to have been populated by AI, although it’s impossible for us to tell from what we saw whether this is actually the case.
Either way, DJs have been using ChatGPT etc to help build sets for a while now, but cross-referencing it against your actual library or (presumably) streaming service is a smart idea, and where better to do it than right in your DJ software?
3. Overhauled effects engine
VirtualDJ’s effects have always been a weak point. Yes, you can plug in VST effects and so on, but out of the box, they’ve sounded poor for the longest time. It now appears that the effects options have had a complete overhaul, with an apparently huge array of effects to choose from and the ability to build effects banks of your favourites (so you’re not overwhelmed).
Some of those effect names seem mighty familiar, too – here’s looking at you, Pioneer DJ and Rane – and if so, then VirtualDJ users are about to get a massive boost to the capabilities of their software. But we’ll wait till we see the actual software and hear them before we conclude how good they are.
First Thoughts
To be clear, we haven’t seen the software and haven’t spoken to the developers – what you see is what we have seen. But already it is clear that this is some of the deepest integration of AI we’ve seen in DJ software to date, and it’s almost certainly indicative of the way things are going.
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Obviously having not tried this out, we can’t tell you what it’s like to use. However, there’s certainly some fun things in here that I suspect will especially help mobile DJs looking for inspiration on the fly at gigs.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments on the AI features and the other new features teased here. No word on exactly when the software will be available, but we’d guess pretty soon.
Phil Morse
