HBO Max, home to thousands of TV shows and movies, launches a ‘shorts feed’ and a ‘conversational search’ for content discovery. According to the news sources, both the features are being tested in the United States (US).
What HBO Max Shorts actually shows
A new “Shorts” icon added to the app’s bottom navigation opens a vertical feed of trailers, clips and bonus content, customised to each viewer’s individual taste and preferences.
Instead of browsing static rows of titles, users scroll a feed that behaves like a social app. If something in the feed catches a viewer’s interest, they can start watching that title immediately or save it to “My List” without leaving the feed.
The feature is currently limited to select iOS users in the U.S., with a wider device and market rollout planned for later.
How the clips get made
The Shorts feed uses an in-house AI tool that scans scene-level metadata across thousands of hours of film and TV content to flag moments it judges most compelling for discovery purposes, and human editors at HBO Max then choose which clips actually make it into the feed.
It’s a hybrid model – machine-scale scanning paired with editorial judgement – rather than a fully automated pipeline. Deepna Devkar, HBO Max’s SVP of Machine learning engineering framed the AI‘s role as speeding up how quickly the platform can turn its catalogue into discoverable, short-form clips.
Ask HBO Max: search that understands mood, not just titles
Available to adult users on Android, this conversational search feature is located under the “Ask HBO Max” tab within the search section as the second component of the rollout.
By leveraging semantic search and natural language understanding, the tool interprets a viewer’s actual intent instead of requiring precise actor names or titles. This allows it to surface relevant content even when the wording of a query does not directly match the content’s metadata.
So a search like “dysfunctional family drama” or “something for a movie night with friends” can return a relevant match without the user knowing the title going in.
Like this story? get the next one in your inbox.
Why streamers are all doing this at once
The move mirrors similar discovery pushes already underway at Netflix, Disney+ and Peacock, as the streaming industry leans further into social-style browsing and AI to reduce friction and hold viewer attention.
Liesel Kipp, executive vice president, Product Management, Warner Bros. Discovery, said, “These new mobile features build on intuitive, familiar behaviours subscribers use every day. Both ‘HBO Max Shorts’ and ‘conversational search’ translate those behaviours into new ways to discover programming across the HBO Max service, making it easier and more seamless for subscribers to find something to watch.”
Following a successful rollout in the US, the streaming company intends to launch this feature globally through JioHotstar instead of as an independent application.
This integrated HBO Max hub will be available to JioHotstar’s expansive user base, which exceeds 100 million paid subscribers, offering dedicated add-on tiers that begin at ₹49 per month.
