Prime Video has now launched Video Recaps. Available in beta in the U.S., these AI-powered Video Recaps provide Prime Video users with a visual way to catch up on past seasons of a series before jumping into the latest season.
Key Takeaways
- Prime Video has launched beta Video Recaps in the U.S., offering theatrical-quality, AI-generated summaries of past seasons.
- Video Recaps help viewers catch up on past seasons through the use of video, narration, dialogue, and music.
- Video Recaps follows last year’s launch of X-Ray Recaps, offering an upgraded and video-first way to catch up.
Amazon added X-Ray Recaps to Prime Video last November. Building on the service’s general X-Ray feature, X-Ray Recaps provide Prime Video users with a text-based summary of a season, episode, and even parts of episodes.
The all-new Video Recaps does exactly the same thing, albeit in video form. Video Recaps are theatrical-quality videos that summarize key events and plot points for shows.
Generative AI appears to be in use for every step of the process here, including analyzing content to identify major plot points and character arcs, pulling relevant video clips, combining them with relevant audio effects and/or dialogue, adding voiceover narration, and bringing all of these elements together to create the final video.
“Video Recaps marks a groundbreaking application of generative AI for streaming,” said Gérard Medioni, vice president of technology at Prime Video. “This first-of-its-kind feature demonstrates Prime Video’s ongoing commitment to innovation and making the viewing experience more accessible and enjoyable for customers.”
As this is a new feature, it is currently only available in beta form. In addition, Video Recaps are currently only available to Prime Video users in the U.S., and only with select English-language Prime Original series like Fallout, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Upload, Bosch, and The Rig.
For those interested in watching a Video Recap to catch up on a Prime Original, the feature can be found by navigating to a title’s page in the Prime Video app. The user will then see a ‘Recap‘ button listed in the menu, next to the Play button.
After clicking on the Recap button, the user will be able to select between reading a text-based X-Ray Recap and watching a Video Recap, depending on availability.
It should be noted these AI-powered recaps are relevant to the season the user is currently engaged with and providing there is a previous season. Basically, recaps won’t be available when viewing details for the first season of a show.
Likewise, when checking out an older season (for example, season two of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan), recaps should only include information for seasons released before (for example, season one of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan).
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