Jeff Bezos Wants Popular Streaming Service to Tap Into AI

Amazon has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on AI. This year alone, the tech giant committed about $200 billion in capital spending tied largely to AI infrastructure and poured $25 billion into leading AI startup Anthropic. 

Now Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos wants visible proof that this massive bet can pay off. To accomplish this aim, he is turning to the company’s popular streaming service Prime Video, which has more than 200 million viewers. 

According to a recent Reuters report, Bezos asked Prime Video head Mike Hopkins to redesign the streaming service to showcase the company’s sprawling investments in AI. Amazon employees internally call the project Lighthouse because it intends to bring Amazon’s AI capabilities to light and act as a beacon for its AI ambitions. 

A heated meeting led to an overhaul

Lighthouse emerged from an internal presentation Prime Video executives made to Bezos last fall, per Reuters. The meeting grew contentious because Bezos was not satisfied with Hopkins’ ideas to update Prime Video, per Reuters. Bezos wanted the executive to emphasize AI capabilities and personalization through the platform. 

Reuters reports that Bezos directed Hopkins to overhaul the home screen and core user experience so that AI recommendations sit at the center of the app, not buried in side recommendations or secondary menus. 

Prime Video uses two main avenues to decide what users see first on the main screen: paid placements from studios and software-driven recommendations based on what users have watched before. 

If Amazon changes that system so the screen is driven more by personalization, it could disrupt the current way studios get visibility for their content, Michael Goodman, director of entertainment research for Parks Associates, told Reuters.

“The real ‌estate on the ⁠home screen is very valuable to studios, so it would be a big change to take away any of that coveted space,” Goodman said.

Inside Lighthouse plans

The Lighthouse redesign would move Prime Video away from its familiar grid of tiles and promotion slots toward a dynamic feed curated in real-time by Amazon’s algorithms. The company has new AI features in the works that improve movie and show recommendations, partly by understanding user preferences and responding to spoken requests. 

Amazon is developing features like AI-generated thumbnails, better browsing prompts, such as “action movies from the 1980s” or “Christmas rom-coms” and closer integration with Alexa voice search. 

People with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Prime Video will have a redesigned main home page as part of Lighthouse. The standard search function would be the same. There will also still be space at the top of the screen for video promotions of new releases or sporting events. 

Amazon is already trying out the new design with a small group of people, per Reuters. The company’s plans could change once Amazon gathers feedback from early users.