HBO Max is introducing two new features designed to help viewers spend less time searching and more time watching.
Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Tuesday that the streaming service is rolling out a TikTok-style vertical video feed alongside an experimental AI-powered search tool that understands natural language.
The new additions are aimed at solving one of the biggest challenges facing streaming platforms today: helping users discover content in increasingly crowded libraries. As audiences continue to embrace short-form videos on apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels, streaming services are adopting similar formats to showcase their own movies and TV shows.
A new Shorts tab has been added to the HBO Max mobile app, giving users access to a personalized feed of trailers, memorable scenes, and behind-the-scenes clips. The recommendations are tailored using each viewer’s watch history, allowing users to instantly start watching a featured title or save it to their watch list for later.
Warner Bros. said the clips shown in the feed are selected with the help of an AI system that analyzes scene-level metadata from thousands of hours of content to identify moments most likely to capture viewers’ attention. Human editors then review and choose the clips that best represent HBO Max’s catalog before they appear in the app.
The company is not the first to embrace the vertical video format. Netflix, Disney+, and Peacock have already introduced similar feeds to encourage content discovery through short video previews.
The Shorts feature is currently being tested with a limited group of iPhone users in the United States before expanding to additional devices and regions.
HBO Max is also testing a conversational AI search experience that lets users search for movies and TV shows using everyday language instead of specific titles. Rather than typing the name of a show, viewers can enter requests such as “I’m in the mood for a comedy,” “dysfunctional family drama,” or “best movie for a girls’ night,” and receive personalized recommendations.
AI-assisted search is becoming increasingly common across the streaming industry. Netflix introduced a comparable feature last year, while Amazon offers an AI voice search experience on Fire TV devices that responds to more natural and open-ended viewing requests.
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The conversational AI search tool is initially available to a select group of Android users in the United States, with a broader rollout planned in the coming months.
