HBO Max Launches Vertical Shorts Feed, Tests Conversational Search on Android
Two new discovery features arrived on HBO Max for mobile subscribers: a vertical scrollable feed called HBO Max Shorts and an experimental conversational search tool called Ask HBO Max. Shorts surfaces trailers, clips and bonus content through a new Shorts icon in the bottom navigation menu, with the feed customized to each subscriber's watch history; viewers can start a title or add it to My List directly from a clip. An in-house AI tool built by HBO Max uses machine learning algorithms and scene-level metadata to scan thousands of hours of titles and surface candidate scenes, which HBO Max editors then select and format for vertical playback. The feature is currently limited to select iOS users in the US, with a wider rollout planned. Ask HBO Max, meanwhile, is available to select adult subscribers in the US on Android and uses natural language understanding to interpret queries such as 'best movie for a girls' night in' even when a title's metadata doesn't contain those exact words. 'We're thrilled to launch this application of AI to accelerate the creation of these clips,' said Deepna Devkar, senior vice president of machine learning engineering at HBO Max.
Shorter discovery paths on a streaming platform change how campaigns tied to specific titles get exposure ahead of premieres and long after launch. Vertical, algorithmically curated feeds surface older or lower-profile titles alongside new releases, which affects where a sponsored spot or promotional integration inside HBO Max content is likely to be seen by a given subscriber. Conversational search built on semantic understanding surfaces titles by mood and genre queries even when a title's metadata carries none of those words, which matters for planning any campaign tied to specific HBO Max titles or release windows.