We’ve all been there: You’re describing a scene from a movie, but you can’t quite remember all the details. Frantic efforts to find it in your library fall short, or you can’t remember if it is 45 minutes in or an hour and 40 in.
Amazon has built a solution to that conundrum, combining its AI prowess, Fire TV devices, its Alexa+ voice assistant and the vast scale of Prime Video in one new feature for Alexa+ users with Fire TV devices: Describe a scene in a movie, and Prime Video will pull up the scene instantly, no guesswork required.
Users can describe the scene using the names of actors or characters, lines of dialogue, or whatever else they can think of. Here are some examples of requests, as outlined by Amazon:
“Jump to the Ozdust ballroom scene in Wicked with Glinda”
“Jump to the scene in Mamma Mia where Sophie sings ‘Honey Honey’”
“Jump to the boulder chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark”
“Jump to the scene when John McClane says ‘come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs’”
“Jump to the card scene in Love Actually”
“Jump to the scene in Red One where Santa flies over the city”
Amazon has thousands of movie titles available at launch, including tens of thousands of scenes, and the company says that it is indexing more all the time.
It is worth noting that users will need to be fully-baked in the Amazon ecosystem to get the capabilities: They will need a Fire TV device (sorry Roku or Apple TV users!), a Prime or Prime Video subscription, and access to Alexa+, which is included in Prime but will soon be available as a standalone subscription.
Amazon has also been integrating AI into its platform for years, going back to its X-Ray tools, which provide information about actors and scenes. Alexa+ also allows for conversational features like acting about an actor’s filmography, sports highlights, or recommendations based on things the user has watched.
Last month Amazon also launched AI-powered series recaps.