Warner Bros. Discovery has introduced two new mobile features to HBO Max in the U.S. aimed at making content discovery faster and more intuitive for subscribers.
The first feature is HBO Max Shortintroduces a personalized vertical feed of trailers, clips, and bonus videos. The feature, accessible through a new “Shorts” button in the app’s bottom navigation bar, recommends content based on a subscriber’s viewing history. Users can start watching titles directly from their feed or save them to their watchlist.
This feature is currently being tested with a limited group of iOS users in the US and will gradually expand to other devices and markets.
According to Warner Bros. Discovery, these clips are created using in-house artificial intelligence tools that analyze scene-level metadata from thousands of hours of movies and TV shows. The system identifies standout moments and then HBO Max editors review and select the best clips before adapting them to vertical format.
Commenting on the announcement, Deepna Devkar, senior vice president of machine learning engineering at Warner Bros. Discovery, said the company is using AI to accelerate the creation of Discovery Clips and plans to expand its capabilities over time to make it easier for viewers to explore a larger library of content.
The company also introduced an experimental conversational search feature for adult users on Android in the US. The tool, available through the “Ask HBO Max” option on the search page, understands natural language queries and recommends related titles without requiring exact keywords.
Subscribers can search using prompts like “comedy in the mood,” “dysfunctional family drama,” and “best movies for girls’ night out,” and receive recommendations based on intent.
Liesel Kipp, executive vice president of product management for Warner Bros. Discovery, said the new features are designed around familiar mobile behavior to make browsing the HBO Max library more seamless. The conversational search experience will be rolled out to more devices and markets in the future.
