Navigating the vast amount of streaming content available today can be a full-time job. Recommendations from friends, blog posts, and TikToks of movies I haven’t thought about in years all help. But finding something that me, my husband, my 13-year-old daughter, and my 16-year-old son all want to watch together is still a monumental task.
So when Amazon announced its new AI-powered voice search for Fire TVs at its fall event last year, I was intrigued. With the promise of making content searching easier and smarter, I hoped this would be the solution to my problems. I’ve now had some hands-on experience with the new feature, and while it seems promising, like many AI-powered searches at the moment, it’s just not reliable enough to be all that useful.
The basic idea is that you can use more natural language to ask Alexa to find something for you to watch. Whether you have a show in mind but can’t remember the name or aren’t sure what you’re into, tap the Alexa button on the Fire TV remote and ask questions like, “What is that show about money laundering?” money? in the mountains?” or “Show me British crime dramas with female leads,” and the voice assistant should help you figure it out. It’s the AI equivalent of flipping through channels, only Alexa does the flipping for you.
This is all made possible by a new Amazon-built large language model (LLM), designed to surface the content of movies and TV shows using natural language input. It’s rolling out today to eligible Fire TV devices running Fire OS 6 or later. At launch, it will be able to find content based on things like topic, genre, plot points, actors and quotes thanks to training based on data from services like IMDb.
Amazon’s Joshua Park, senior product manager for Fire TV, demonstrated AI search at Amazon’s Day 1 headquarters in Seattle earlier this month. He showed me several questions, including: “Show me the movie where Tom Hanks is a pilot and has to land on the Hudson” (Tarnish); “What is the TV show that mentions McDonald’s Szechuan sauce?” (Rick and Morty); and “Show me the nature documentary narrated by Obama” (Our great national parks). Alexa got it all right, but while it’s neat, it’s all stuff I can Google on my phone while sitting on the couch.
Amazon adds useful context to the results, including showing you which apps you have that let you stream the show and whether it’s free for you. But what I want from a more intelligent search service isn’t something that will jog my memory, but something smart enough to find something fun to watch. I want it to use its huge data set to sift through the junk and find the quality stuff for me. I want it to be that old-fashioned video store clerk from my youth.
When Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, demonstrated the search feature on stage at Amazon’s fall event last year, that’s literally what he promised. He said using the feature is “like talking to a good friend who is also the world’s best video store clerk.”
His demo involved a much more capable Alexa than the one I saw in Seattle. He asked Alexa to “find me some action movies” and then was able to continue talking to the assistant to divide it into movies he didn’t have to pay for, movies he hadn’t seen yet (or at least hadn’t seen) . t in his Fire TV viewing history), the ones that were good for his teens, and then finally ask a contextual clue: “We love video games, which one should we go for?” It suggested Scott Pilgrim. Now That very handy.
I was able to chat with Alexa, including pauses and ums and ers, and it (mostly) understood what I asked
Park tells me that these types of in-depth conversations back and forth are planned for future updates. In the time I tried out the current capabilities, I wasn’t able to get further than two searches before it started to fall apart. It also struggled to provide more than a few correct answers to broader questions like “Show me Oscar-winning films from the 1970s.”
“It’s definitely day one for us,” Park explained when I asked about these limits. “We certainly have an idea of what we need to do to improve it so that no matter what the customer asks, we can find the right content for them.”
What it does do well is improve the current state of Alexa voice search, which – like most voice commands – requires specific nomenclature to surface the right results. With the new Fire TV search, I was able to have conversations with Alexa, including pauses and ums and ers, and it (mostly) understood what I asked.
But I was largely disappointed with the results. To see if it might help with my family’s viewing situation, I suggested the command “Show me some dark comedies with violence.” (I like romantic comedies, and my husband likes horror movies.) It presented itself heath, American psychopath, Pulp FictionAnd Barbie. In addition Barbie being completely out of left field, the others were all over 20 years old. Not helpful.
Then I tried something much more specific. We like to find shows we can binge watch together, so I asked, “Show me shows with more than six episodes that are highly rated.” It suggested two shows, both anime. One got a nine out of 10, but the other was a five out of 10. Even for an avid anime fan, that’s not a great result.
At this point I decided to go for what I thought would be a softball question. Something I could have asked that video store clerk: “Show me something fun to watch.” The results were… bizarre. His first suggestion was Mrs. Marple (a classic British detective series that I really love, but is very old), but the second and third options were The curious woman And Super Vixens, which not only appear to be 70’s softcore porn, but also have very poor ratings on IMDB.
Yes, it is indeed still early. Amazon spokesperson Ashley Aruda reached out after I published this to report the issues I was experiencing around the “relevance of search results” during my demo have been addressed. She noted that the version I was testing was not the version shipping to customers today.
I tested the AI search on a Fire Stick at Amazon headquarters on May 3, about three weeks ago. I got the update on my Fire Stick this morning, so I was able to repeat the “something good to watch” question. I’m happy to say there was no sign of any curious females. Instead, Alexa suggested Dune: part two, Shogun And Sugar. So it looks like I’m ready for my weekend visit.
Updated on May 30: Added that Amazon reached out after publication to note that I tested an earlier version of the search feature, not the one shipping to users today, and that the company is optimistic that the issues I encountered have been resolved.