Amazon Fire TV and Netflix have teamed up to turn on a random content playback feature using Alexa voice controls.
Customers in the U.S. and Canada can now say, “Alexa, Play Something on Netflix” and Netflix will launch a show or movie that they might enjoy. It also works with the hands-free voice controls available on the new Amazon Fire TV Omni Series smart TVs.
The new feature is front and center in a new Fire TV ad running across the platform and broadcast channels including Fox and NBC throughout November.
“Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen that Fire TV customers that used voice engaged with content almost twice as much as those who didn’t,” said Charlotte Maines, director of Fire TV, in a statement. “With Fire TV and Netflix’s ‘Play Something’ we can quickly help customers find the TV show or movie that’s right for them.”
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“Deciding what to watch isn’t easy when you have a lot of great options to choose from. So, we are excited to partner with Fire TV to bring the Alexa voice technology to the Netflix Play Something feature. Now you can instantly discover a show or film we know you’ll love based on what you’ve watched before,” said Magno Herran, director of marketing partnerships at Netflix, in a statement.
Netflix COO Greg Peters earlier this year said users sometimes show up and they're not really sure what they want to watch. One example of how Netflix is addressing this problem is through a linear feed, which the company is testing in France.
“I think an even better example of that is a new feature that we've been testing and we're going to now roll out globally, because it's really working for us where our members can basically indicate to us that they just want to skip browsing entirely, click one button and we'll pick a title for them just to instantly play,” Peters said. “And that's a great mechanism that's worked quite well for members in that situation.”