Tubi Partners with AI Firm to Improve Search Function
Tubi Partners with AI Firm to Improve Search Function
Everyone who has ever used a streaming platform knows the dread that watching the final season of a given show can cause. That’s because once it’s over, the user has to decide what they’re going to watch next. With more than 2 million titles available to stream on-demand around the world, that can be a bit of a challenge.
Fox’s free streaming service Tubi houses over 200,000 of those titles, and it wants to help. The streamer has announced a new partnership with the artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI to offer users a new feature called “RabbitAI.” RabbitAI is powered by ChatGPT-4, and gives users a new way to browse the extensive Tubi library.
The feature allows users to ask hyper-specific questions in order to get the most relevant results possible. A viewer could ask “Are there any heartwarming romances?” or “Can you show me funny action movies?” and get instant recommendations. RabbitAI saves those searches so users can bring them back quickly, and over time learns what content a person is most likely to watch next based on past choices.
Watch a Preview of the RabbitAI Search Function on Tubi:
RabbitAI is available now, but only to select Tubi users. The feature is in its open beta testing phase, and Tubi has chosen to roll it out only for customers on iOS devices. Once the beta is over, the RabbitAI feature will almost certainly be available for more devices.
As a user continues to stream new titles, Tubi’s platform will learn what viewers prefer based on a series of viewer-driven signals, including saving content to My List, liking or disliking titles, or simply watching TV shows or movies. That means it will behoove audiences to make sure they are giving as much feedback as possible on Tubi, so the service can give them the most personalized content recommendations possible.
A survey conducted by Nielsen and Gracenote earlier this year indicates that the average streaming user spends more than 10.5 minutes finding something new to watch. Most importantly from a streaming provider’s perspective, 20% of people simply give up after that amount of time and decide to pursue another activity instead of continuing to stream. As streamers try desperately to differentiate themselves from their competitors and boost engagement, a feature like RabbitAI could be a game-changer.
Tubi now boasts 74 million monthly active users, so its engagement numbers are already solid. Bringing on an AI-improved search function will likely boost those numbers even higher, and Tubi almost certainly has eyes on the two out of three American streaming users who are not yet signed up for an ad-supported service.
Tubi
Tubi is a free video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 200,000+ movies and TV episodes - more than any other streaming service. Its ad breaks are shorter and less frequent than most free services. Fox executives have called their service “TV on steroids.”