I guess the days of “Here’s what you missed on Glee” are over. Amazon’s Prime Video streamer will add AI-generated “video summaries” to help viewers catch up between seasons of shows, the company announced Wednesday.
Amazon says the feature “leverages generative AI to create theatrical-quality season summaries with synchronized narration, dialogue, and music.” On Wednesday, the beta will begin rolling out for select Prime Originals, including “Fallout,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Upload.”
Prime Video launched a similar AI-powered feature last year called “X-Ray Recaps,” which recaps complete seasons, episodes, or portions of episodes. Amazon said at the time that its AI model had guardrails in place to ensure these summaries didn’t accidentally share spoilers.
Consumers have become accustomed to this type of text-based AI summarization, as they are more likely to see it when text is summarized on their phones, or when they see a (possibly unwanted) AI summary at the top of a Google search result. However, these video summaries venture into new territory and may seem more intrusive to the viewing experience than text summaries. Or maybe it will be accepted by those who do not remember what happened with “Bosch”.
Prime Video’s competitors are also exploring ways to integrate generative AI into their products.
For example, YouTube TV uses the “Key Plays” feature to allow viewers to catch up on a sports game if they start watching during the game. Although it’s a bit imperfect (the algorithm seems to only be able to identify important offensive plays in baseball), this feature helped YouTube TV win its first Technical Emmy Award.
Netflix, on the other hand, uses generative AI on the production side of its business.
Netflix announced earlier this year that it used generative AI to create the first ever building collapse scene in the final footage of the Argentinian show “The Eternaut.” “Happy Gilmore 2” then used generative AI to make characters look younger in the film’s opening scene, and “The Billionaire Banker” producers used it in pre-production to envision wardrobe and set design.
The use of AI in the film industry has sparked much debate, with artists concerned that these tools, which are sometimes trained on their productions without their permission, could put their livelihoods at risk. But some argue that tools like Wonder Dynamics that speed up the tedious grind of animation and special effects could expand an artist’s creative capabilities.
