Netflix has spent years tuning its recommendations, and its answer to the problem of too much to watch is now to ask you what you feel like watching. On Tuesday the company announced "AI Discover", a new tab in its TV app that will host experimental, AI-powered ways to find a show or movie. The first experiment is built around themes and moods.
What the tab does
The opening feature is simple to describe. You pick a theme, and Netflix shows titles that match it. The themes reported so far include "Something Light," "Scare Me," "Family Movie Night" and "Quick Watches," with more beyond those.
According to one report, the themes are curated and feature clips from shows and movies. They are organized around your mood, your viewing preferences, how much time you have, or what is new and trending.
Netflix's own pitch, quoted from its blog post, is that "what sounds right for a quiet night in may look different for family movie night or a few spare minutes." It is hard to argue with that, and equally hard to remember the last time a row of thumbnails settled the question.
Steering the results
Picking a theme is only the first step. The controls after that are where the feature tries to behave less like a menu and more like a conversation.
- Narrow it down. After choosing a theme you can pick more specific ones and keep going until something looks right.
- Start over. A "something different" option resets the search.
- Tune each title. Every title carries a "Tune Your Recommendations" button next to "Play" and "My List". You can use it to save recommendations you like or to exclude titles you never want suggested again.
The exclusion part matters more than it sounds. If you tell Netflix you dislike a suggestion, the app is supposed to remember that. Anyone who has watched one stray documentary reshape their homepage for a month will appreciate the intent.
The "intelligence layer"
Netflix says AI Discover runs on "a new intelligence layer we've been building that responds to what members tell us in real time and keeps learning." That is the entire technical description on offer.
The reports do not say what models sit underneath it, how it differs from the existing recommendation system, or how much of the selection is automated versus hand-curated. The word "curated" appears in one account, and the word "AI" is in the tab's name, so the split is left to the reader's imagination.
One report reads the move as Netflix trying to make a growing library easier to get through, nudging discovery away from endless scrolling and toward something more personalized. That is an interpretation, not a stated Netflix goal, though it is a sensible one.
A test kitchen, by design
Netflix describes AI Discover as its "test kitchen," a place to "try out new recipes for discovery." The company says feedback from users will help it decide which features to keep or improve before they move into the main Netflix experience.
That framing buys the company some room. A tab labeled as an experiment can be reshaped, shrunk or quietly retired without anyone calling it a failure. A feature that ships on the home screen has fewer such exits.
Who gets it, and when
The rollout is gradual and limited. AI Discover is starting in the US for members who use Netflix in English on supported TVs. One report says Netflix plans to bring the tab to more users in the coming weeks.
If you have it, you will see a "Discover" button in the top navigation bar of the TV app. It comes with a red gem icon and a "New" label. If you do not see it yet, the sources suggest patience is the only available tool.
The reports do not say which TVs count as supported, or whether the feature will reach phones, tablets or other languages and countries.
The backdrop
One of the reports places the announcement next to some less cheerful news. Netflix recently laid off around 1,000 employees, as growth has slowed and users are reportedly watching the service less. That detail appears in only one account, and it describes context rather than cause. Neither report claims the layoffs and the new tab are connected.
Still, a streaming service that wants people to find something to watch faster has an obvious reason to care about how long they spend looking. Whether themed picks do that better than the existing rows is the question the "test kitchen" is supposed to answer.
What we do not know yet
- How the new intelligence layer works, or what it was trained on.
- Which features will follow the theme-based one under the same tab.
- Which experiments, if any, will graduate to the main Netflix experience.
- When the tab will reach people outside the US, English-language and supported-TV group.
Netflix says it has spent years refining how you discover things. The new tab's quiet admission is that the next step might be to just ask you.