Netflix is struggling, of late. Users aren’t opening the app or watching content as often as they once did, one Bloomberg report claims. Surely, the streaming giant can turn it around with the rollout of what it calls AI Discover. You might have the answer when you get a peek at what AI Discover actually entails.
The name is a dead giveaway to anyone who’s used the internet in the past four years. Instead of an algorithm serving up suggestions, Netflix is outsourcing that work to artificial intelligence. It’s currently only available to a small subset of users in the US while the company irons out the kinks before it eventually arrives elsewhere.
Netflix’s AI recommendations are going off the beaten track
In theory, Netflix hopes to stop all that scrolling and get you watching ASAP. That’ll only work if AI Discover is good at picking up what each user is putting down. You’ll start by picking a theme — “Something Light” to help set the mood, or “Family Movie Night” — which gives Netflix enough info to surface a few recommendations.
From there, you either choose from the selection served up, or continue the search (this feels familiar…). Netflix then offers an even more in-depth selection of themes, “so you can keep searching until something feels right”. If that still hasn’t done the trick, “Something Different” refreshes the themes. Rinse and repeat, we guess.
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Users can very kindly train Netflix’s model by using the “Tune Your Recommendations” button attached to each title. Hit it, and you can decide whether the AI should keep that recommendation, or never suggest it again. “What we’re most excited about is how it feels to use,” Netflix wrote. “AI Discover is powered by a new intelligence layer we’ve been building that responds to what members tell us in real time and keeps learning. ”
Perhaps Netflix thinks users simply aren’t watching as much because their library is too vast, and that streamlining the decision-making process will keep ’em around a bit longer. Putting more effort into that content might also do the trick, but that requires money.
