Cineverse has partnered with Google to employ artificial intelligence in a new search tool and a digital movie buff named Ava.
The streamer’s new AI-powered search and discovery tool, cineSearch, will help users find new films and television series. Cineverse developed cineSearch using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Search to create a chatbot specializing in finding more than 100,000 films and series.
“Generative AI has the potential to fundamentally transform the media industry, fueling a new era of cloud-enabled capabilities that can significantly improve the consumer experience,” said Anil Jain, global managing director of strategic consumer industries at Google Cloud. “By leveraging Google Cloud’s leading gen AI capabilities, cineSearch can further personalize and streamline the user experience, providing viewers a vastly improved way to discover new content, with relevant recommendations for movies and television shows at their fingertips.”
Last November, Google Cloud launched new Vertex AI search capabilities to help media and entertainment companies build personalized experiences into their platforms. A survey by Harris Poll shows that 79% of participants kept a streaming subscription after finding new content. Personalizing and streamlining recommendations with AI can help stave off customer turnover and help streamers retain audiences.
Members can search by categories such as theme, tone, mood, setting, music score, plot, and genres. The cineSearch feature takes a user’s location, the local weather conditions, the date, and other factors to find the most fitting suggestions.
If a movie isn’t available in Cineverse’s catalog, Ava steps in. The digital assistant will offer links – and movie trivia – to help users find the title on another streaming service, cutting back on time spent endlessly scrolling to find what to watch and where to stream it.
“Using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, we now have the ability to expand this feature well beyond our initial expectations,” said Tony Huidor, chief technology officer and chief operating officer at Cineverse. “We feel this is a great example of leveraging the power of AI to not only create better user experiences but also help aid in the discovery of great films that fans may not have otherwise found.”
The new search feature will be available on Cineverse this spring. There’s a waitlist to join the public beta testing that starts today. cineSearch will launch more widely in the “near future” on third-party streaming platforms.
Image credit: Cineverse