Streaming
HBO Max launches TikTok-style vertical shorts feed powered by AI
Warner Bros. Discovery is deploying machine learning to surface bite-sized clips and trailers from its library, joining rivals in the hunt for swipeable discovery.
The Verge
HBO Max is rolling out a vertical video feed called "HBO Max Shorts"—a TikTok-like carousel of brief clips tailored to each user's viewing habits. The initiative puts the streaming service in step with Netflix, Disney Plus, and Peacock, which have all adopted similar short-form discovery tools.
How it works#
The Shorts feed surfaces trailers, scene clips, and bonus material from HBO Max's catalog. Users can tap to start watching a title directly or save it to their watchlist. The feed lives in a dedicated icon on the bottom navigation bar, and clips are personalized based on individual viewing history.
AI-assisted curation#
Behind the scenes, a homegrown artificial intelligence tool scans thousands of hours of content using scene-level metadata to flag high-impact moments—pivotal scenes, visual showstoppers, plot twists—and flag them as candidates. Human editors then review the AI's suggestions and choose which clips best capture the storytelling appeal audiences seek. The selected clips are then reformatted for vertical playback.
Rollout timeline#
HBO Max Shorts is launching first with a limited iOS trial in the United States before expanding to other devices and regions. The company has also signaled plans to add sports content and refine the experience as user behavior data comes in.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery is testing a companion feature—a conversational search tool that accepts natural language queries—on Android in the US, a similar experiment Netflix is conducting with generative AI search on its own platform.
