Many streamers are starting to embrace vertical video, and now HBO MAX is the latest to join the trend. On Tuesday, the company announced two new mobile features for the US. One is called “HBO Max Shorts,” which is designed “to help users discover something to watch by highlighting iconic and memorable scenes from the HBO Max library in a vertical, scrollable feed.”
Currently, this feature is rolling out for “select” iOS users in the US, with more devices and markets to come. Sports Shorts will also be coming soon.
With this feature, you’ll be able to browse trailers, clips, and even bonus clips. HBO Max says that the algorithm will deliver content based on your watch history. The user can then choose to continue to the depicted series or film immediately, add it to their “My List,” or do nothing at all.
HBO Max is using AI to make these shorts
To no one’s surprise, HBO Max is using an in-house AI tool to create these shorts, “which helps human editors select and verticalize content by using machine learning algorithms that utilize scene-level metadata to comb through thousands of hours of titles and suggest the most compelling, high-impact scenes for discovery.”
Basically, HBO Max is using AI, but there is some human input with these new shorts.
The other new feature also uses AI, which is called “Ask HBO Max,” and this will use AI to aid a user in discovering content with “natural language”.
So there you have it, AI is not infiltrating streaming services like HBO Max, and it might actually be a good use of AI. Though we’ll have to wait and see how good this actually is, seeing as this is just a test right now. There’s no word yet on how large of a test group HBO Max is using for these features.
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