Netflix is ​​testing a new AI-powered voice search in the US

If you’ve been spending a lot of time typing and using your TV remote to find things to watch, Netflix has some good news for you. The company is reportedly testing a new AI-based voice search within its smart TV app that lets users find things to watch using natural language queries.

According to the report of The VergeThe feature is not widely available and is being tested with a limited group of users in the US. Even among those users, it is reportedly only accessible on a subset of their devices.

Users with access to the tool can press the Netflix button on their remote to activate AI voice search. Netflix offers some suggested searches with an “Ask” button that leads to an AI-powered search, letting users speak to search and find things to watch.

Voice search reportedly performs very well with most queries and can surface relevant TV shows and movies even for difficult searches. In fact, a simple query like “funny children’s TV shows about death” reportedly brought up a series of unfortunate events that certainly fit that description.

Netflix also appears to have made sure that Search doesn’t respond to certain types of searches, including racist sentiments.

This certainly seems to be a well-intentioned move on the company’s part, even though it’s still in beta. However, it is missing some key features. For example, it cannot display shows based on users’ viewing history or use personalized recommendations.

This omission is surprising, as Netflix’s personalized recommendations are exceptionally good. Including these in this new AI-powered voice search would have made it an even better tool.

Although we’re not sure when Netflix will roll out this upgrade to everyone, it’s definitely worth the wait if its reported accuracy is to be believed.