Amazon is rolling out artificial intelligence to its Fire TV devices to power conversational search. The new Alexa search capability combines artificial intelligence with Fire TV extensive entertainment content and app library, enabling users receive personal television programme and movie recommendations using natural language. So how far does this solve the problem of finding what we want to watch?
This new Fire TV search experience is powered by a large language model built by Amazon.
Examples given include saying things like:
“Alexa, show me movies about dog and human friendships.”
“Show me psychological thrillers with surprise endings.”
Users can search by topic:
“Find sci-fi TV shows about time travel.”
“Show me classic comedy series about roommates.”
Or search by genre:
“Find Korean horror films.”
“Find me medical drama shows.”
Or even by quotes from dialogue:
“What movie has the line, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates?’” (Forrest Gump)
“Find me the show where someone says, ‘Winter is coming.’” (Game of Thrones)
While such searches by fulfil certain specific use cases, it is unclear whether that is how people generally decide what to watch.
Still, if you are in the mood for a movie about friendships with dogs, it might be just the thing. The surprise might be that rather than Lassie it is about Hachi and stars Richard Gere, directed by Lasse Hallström.
According to the contrived demonstration, customers also searched for “Dog”, “Pet”, “Family”, “Animal”, or “Cat”. Really?
The new search feature is available in English to customers in the United States on some Fire TV devices running FOS6 and later. It will roll out to all eligible Fire TV devices in the United States.