Prime Video is testing a great new feature that'll use AI to better recommend movies and shows

Date:
Fri, 13 Dec 2024 16:39:37 +0000

Description:
Amazon's new AI feature for Prime Video knows what you want to watch next.

FULL STORY ======================================================================'AI Topics' analyzes your viewing to come up with recommendations Categories and descriptions are created by a large language model US only, and currently a beta test

Amazon has come up with a modern solution to an age-old problem: how do you find something to watch when there are so many options? It's not exclusively
a streaming problem but the huge amount of choice on the best streaming services has made it considerably worse so Amazon wants to fix it with the power of AI.

The new feature is called 'AI Topics' and for the moment it's exclusive to US Prime Video users. It won't be on every US TV or streaming box, though as
it's a limited beta release for "select customers".

If you're one of those customers you should see the new 'AI Topics' section when you scroll down. From there, you can get some AI-powered help to find your next favorite best Prime Video show or best Prime Video movie . What
does Amazon AI topics actually do? (Image credit: Amazon)

Amazon's system analyzes your viewing to create a selection of
recommendations from Prime Video's vast catalog based on that history, organized into individual topics. You can watch a recommended title by clicking on it, or explore the topic in more detail to refine the recommendations.

'AI Topics' will also generate descriptive names for the topics it
identifies. Amazon gives examples including 'mind-bending sci-fI' and
'fantasy quests'. Other topics might include classic comedies,
'spine-chilling suspense' or 'frontier justice'. And when a topic is generated, 'AI Topics' will also generate related topics to widen the recommendations a little further.

Here's how that works in practice. If you watch a lot of thrilling movies, Amazon's AI might create a topic of 'Thrilling Character Journeys' featuring the likes of Jack Ryan, The Batman, Inception, Memento and The Shawshank Redemption. They're all very different movies but you can see the thread the AI has used to select them.

Below that you've got the additional topics, which just appear as clickable phrases: 'Spider Universe', 'Real Life Transformations', 'Vengeance Thrillers', 'Dark Delights' and so on. And immediately below that there are more recommendations for the current topic, in this example Se7en, Thirteen Lives, Widow and Joker .

You might quibble with some of the choices here, or the descriptions aren't most movies supposed to be 'Thrilling Character Journeys'? but it's a rare streaming subscriber who hasn't spent far too much time scrolling, and this should make that a bit less likely.

AI is clearly going to be an increasing part of our entertainment experience. So if Amazon's looking for more ideas, here's one: AI-powered ad placement. Imagine ads that happen like TV ones used to, with the ads appearing at sensible times rather than just randomly interrupting key scenes with: 'hello [I don't care if the hero is gasping his last] buy a kindle'. Just a thought... You might also like The best Prime Video movies to stream this month as chosen by actual humans Reacher series 3 gets a release date and a trailer that packs a punch The best human-chosen Prime Video shows



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/streaming/amazon-prime-video/prime-video-is-testing- a-great-new-feature-thatll-use-ai-to-better-recommend-movies-and-shows


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)