Jeff Bezos is personally leading a major redesign of Amazon’s Prime Video to put artificial intelligence at the heart of the streaming experience, a move aimed at demonstrating the company’s massive AI investment to its more than 200 million subscribers.
Amazon’s (AMZN) founder and executive chairman urged Prime Video chief Mike Hopkins to overhaul the service after a controversial internal meeting last fall, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter. Bezos was reportedly frustrated that Hopkins’ existing upgrade plan did not adequately showcase the platform’s capabilities in AI and personalization.
The resulting project, codenamed “Lighthouse,” represents a key element of Amazon’s companywide effort to improve its position in the field of artificial intelligence, as rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic scramble to get ahead. The move comes as the tech giant has committed to about $200 billion in capital spending this year, primarily related to AI development, with the two AI companies collectively investing an initial $23 billion and potentially more than $40 billion in additional funding.
Lighthouse plans to introduce a range of new features that use AI to learn individual consumer preferences and respond to voice commands to make better movie and TV recommendations, according to people familiar with the project. The overhaul includes a top-to-bottom redesign of the main home screen, with one option under discussion featuring AI-driven tiles that offer pre-populated viewing suggestions such as “1980s action movies” or “Christmas romance movies.”
The traditional search bar will remain, but there will also be dedicated space at the top of the screen for video highlights promoting new releases and live sports, such as the Amazon-exclusive weekly NFL game “Thursday Night Football.” The company is already testing an early version of the redesign with a small number of users, but the final look is still in flux and subject to change based on tester feedback and financial considerations.
Amazon declined to comment on the project.
Controversial meetings and founders’ personal interests
The review dates back to a presentation Prime Video executives gave to Mr. Bezos last fall that quickly turned heated. When Hopkins’ team laid out its vision for updating the service, Bezos strongly pushed back, arguing that the plan didn’t go far enough in focusing on AI and personalization. The executives were sent back to square one and Lighthouse was born.
Bezos’ direct involvement marks an unusual level of involvement for the billionaire, who has largely stepped back from day-to-day operations since handing over the CEO role to Andy Jassy in 2021. Bezos currently divides his attention between the Washington Post, spaceflight company Blue Origin, and AI startup Prometheus, which reportedly has a market capitalization of about $41 billion. His hands-on role in the Prime Video project highlights the high stakes for a company grappling with the perception that its internal AI-based model is lagging behind its competitors.
Kam Keshmiri, global head of design for Prime Video, also participated in the talks with Bezos and is currently leading the Lighthouse redesign. The team is also discussing integrating Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant directly into Prime Video’s search functionality. Amazon released a generative AI-powered version of Alexa in early 2025 and embedded it on major shopping sites in May 2026, but the division remains in the red as years of overhauls of the voice assistant have had mixed results, according to people familiar with the matter.
Battle for the home screen
Prime Video’s push toward AI-powered personalization could shake up the streaming industry’s economics. Like its competitors, the service currently relies on a combination of software algorithms and paid placement by studios to determine what appears on the home screen. Changes that favor machine learning recommendations over studio payments could upend that system.
“Home screen space is so valuable to studios that taking away that coveted space would be a big change,” said Michael Goodman, director of entertainment research at Parks Associates.
Prime Video has a 4.2% share of U.S. TV viewing, according to April data from Nielsen, trailing YouTube’s 13.4%, Netflix’s (NFLX)’s 7.8% and Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+’s (DIS)’s 5% share. Amazon is trying to fill that gap by leveraging AI to keep viewers engaged longer and turning Prime Video into a central hub for paid subscriptions.
The table below summarizes the competitive landscape for U.S. streaming viewership.
| streaming service | US TV viewing share (April 2026) |
|---|---|
| YouTube | 13.4% |
| Netflix | 7.8% |
| disney plus | 5.0% |
| prime video | 4.2% |
Data source: Nielsen
Prime Video remains one of Amazon’s best-known global brands and is available in many markets where the company has limited or no e-commerce presence. Besides free shipping, this is the most commonly used perk for Prime members. Amazon strengthened its focus on entertainment by acquiring MGM for $8.5 billion in 2022, gaining access to franchises including James Bond and becoming the first streaming service to win an Academy Award in a major category.
The service underwent a major redesign in July 2024, with the goal of helping users distinguish between free content and titles that require additional payments, such as Paramount+ subscriptions or rental fees. Now, the Lighthouse project is moving even further, aiming to deeply embed AI so that the platform itself can learn and adapt to each audience.
Prime Video is more than just a business for Bezos, who frequently attends high-profile Hollywood events and owns a $165 million home in Beverly Hills. The streaming service has become a personal priority and increasingly the public face of Amazon’s AI ambitions.
