Tubi strikes ChatGPT deal that cuts out human movie recommendations

Tubi, the free ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox, has integrated a ChatGPT-powered AI feature that replaces traditional human-curated movie recommendations with AI-driven personalized suggestions. Through the ChatGPT app store, users can install the Tubi app and interact with it by typing “@Tubi” to request movie or TV show recommendations based on specific moods or detailed prompts, such as “a movie that feels like a fever dream but isn’t horror” or “a thriller for tonight.” This innovation aims to enhance content discovery by tailoring suggestions directly through AI conversations rather than relying on conventional homepage browsing.

With Tubi boasting over 100 million monthly users and ChatGPT reporting 900 million weekly active users, this partnership combines significant scale and user engagement, potentially reshaping how viewers find and choose content on streaming platforms. The integration leverages Tubi’s extensive library of more than 300,000 titles, enabling ChatGPT to provide quick, personalized matches, which users can start streaming immediately via embedded “Watch on Tubi” links.

This move aligns with broader industry trends favoring AI-driven personalization to improve user experience and increase viewer retention. While similar AI recommendation attempts have met mixed reactions due to generic outputs, Tubi’s approach of combining ChatGPT’s natural language understanding with its diverse content library represents a strategic push to innovate movie discovery on free streaming services, streamlining user interaction and potentially reducing reliance on conventional curated recommendations.