New Fire TV AI search makes Alexa a movie buff that knows all the quotes

The act of searching a smart TV platform for content would benefit from a fresh set of Gen AI eyes and that’s exactly what Amazon is doing with its Fire TV interface.

Research currently claims streaming service users spend more than ten minutes searching for what to watch every time, as they click, click, click through menus on the remote.

Now Alexa has gained new powers that leverages generative AI to scour the Fire TV content library for more personalised recommendations, as Amazon explained in a blog post today.

Essentially, it comes down to the ability to ask Alexa for more nuanced recommendations. Amazon says the new tools enable you to speak to Alexa in the same way as you would a movie or TV buff pal. The assistant can now identify which movie a famous quote comes from.

“You can ask Alexa to search for streaming content recommendations in the same way you might ask a friend with encyclopaedic knowledge about TV shows and movies, using complex or nuanced language to ask for options based on topic, genre, plot, character, actor, and even by quotes. For example, you can say things like:

“Alexa, show me movies about dog and human friendships.”

“Show me psychological thrillers with surprise endings.”

“What movie has the line, ‘You’re killing me Smalls?’””

Amazon

You’ll be able to search by genre (“find me medical drama shows”), topics (“show me classic comedy series about roommates”), plot (“find the mystery movie set on a private island”), or quotes (“what movie has the line, ‘life is like a box of chocolates?'”).

The company says the abilities come from a new Amazon-built large language model (LLM). It could be a sign of things to come from the rumoured Alexa Plus service that could command a subscription fee in the months to come.

The company says the recommendations will also be conscious of which streaming platforms you subscribe to, so won’t necessarily surface something that’s gonna cost you a fiver to watch once, or twenty quid to own.

Amazon says it’ll be available to users in the US in the coming weeks. Hopefully it won’t be too long before Brits get access too because this sounds really, really useful.