Spotify has been growing even faster since the launch of Apple Music, according to its CEO

Spotify's growth rate has actually increased since the release of Apple Music, CEO Daniel Ek said Monday, according to Bloomberg.

Apple Music may have started with a heavy helping of hype, but Spotify has by no means sat back and let Apple dominate the streaming music market.

Spotify recently closed another funding round, which gave it $526 million in new cash, and valued it at $8.53 billion. This capital could help Spotify expand beyond music, as Spotify has announced plans to enter the video business with the likes of ESPN, NBC, and ABC.

But closer to its core business, Spotify has continued to focus on the area that sets it apart from Apple Music - artificial intelligence. While Apple Music is focused on curation by a cadre of music elites, embodied by superstar DJ Zane Lowe, Spotify is much more involved with machine learning. Spotify bought machine learning powerhouse The Echo Nest last year for a reported $100 million, an acquisition which has helped it roll out a string of better "discovery tools."

Discover Weekly, which debuted earlier this summer, has quickly become popular among users. Fans have gushed on Twitter about the feature "nailing it" and being "the best thing ever." The feature analyzes your listening history and creates a playlist of tracks that match your taste. The playlist is about two hours long and gets updated each week.