HBO Max Shorts brings a vertical video feed to mobile users
Warner Bros. Discovery is testing a personalized vertical feed with trailers, clips and bonus videos for HBO Max viewers.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
Warner Bros. Discovery is adding HBO Max Shorts, a vertical video feed meant to help subscribers find shows and movies inside the HBO Max app. The feature matters because it brings the short-form discovery format used by social apps into another major streaming service.
The company said the feed will appear through an icon in the app’s bottom navigation bar. It will feature trailers, scenes, clips and extra material drawn from the HBO Max catalog, with recommendations shaped by a viewer’s watch history.
What is HBO Max Shorts?
HBO Max Shorts is a TikTok-style stream of vertical videos tied to HBO Max programming. Viewers can use a clip to start watching the related title or save that show or movie to their list for later, according to Warner Bros. Discovery.
The company said the first test will reach “select iOS users” in the United States. Warner Bros. Discovery said the feature will later expand to additional devices and markets, though it did not give a full rollout schedule.
HBO Max is joining a wider move among streaming platforms to use vertical feeds as a recommendation tool. The Verge reported that Netflix, Disney Plus and Peacock already have similar mobile feeds designed to surface programming through short clips.
How the clips are made
Warner Bros. Discovery said HBO Max Shorts uses both an internal AI tool and human editors. The company said the tool uses machine learning and scene-level metadata to search across thousands of hours of titles and suggest scenes that may work well for discovery.
After the tool makes suggestions, HBO Max editors choose which clips to include, according to the company. Warner Bros. Discovery said the selected clips are then formatted for vertical playback in the new experience.
The company also said the feed is expected to add sports content later. Warner Bros. Discovery said it will refine HBO Max Shorts as users interact with the feature.
HBO Max is also testing conversational search
Alongside the Shorts feed, Warner Bros. Discovery is testing what it calls an experimental conversational search experience for HBO Max. The feature lets users look for titles with natural-language requests instead of relying only on standard keyword searches.
The conversational search test is available first to adult Android users in the United States, according to the company. The Verge reported that Netflix is testing a similar search feature.
For HBO Max, the two tests point to the same goal: making it easier for viewers to decide what to watch from a large library. Warner Bros. Discovery is using short clips, personalization and AI-assisted search to push more discovery tools into the mobile app.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.