DirecTV is bringing user interaction to its screensavers, which will offer things like shoppable ads, powered by generative AI shopping platform firm Glance AI. The experience will begin rolling out next year to DirecTV subscribers using Google Gemini TV devices. Glance AI says it developed the technology in conjunction with Google. Among the uses are “creating an AI feed of your favorite sports leagues on your idle-screens or helping your kids discover their next dream vacation.” Overall, Glance AI on TV will offer users the opportunity “to engage with content from hundreds of top American brands and millions of catalogs.”

“We are making television a lean-in experience versus lean back,” Glance Group VP of Commercial Partnerships Rajat Wanchoo tells The Verge, explaining the company wants “to give users a chance to use the advancements that have happened in generative AI to create a ChatGPT moment for themselves, but on TV.”

“DirecTV’s Gemini Air is an Android TV-powered USB device that people can plug into a TV for access to live TV channels, as well as streaming apps,” writes Ars Technica, noting that “Gemini Air doesn’t require a DirecTV satellite connection, and DirecTV gives all of its Internet customers the device.”

DirecTV began selling Gemini devices in 2023 in the form of a Gemini set-top box that connects through DirecTV.

“DirecTV’s screensavers will let a user create an AI avatar of themself by scanning a QR code on the screensaver,” Ars Technica reports, detailing that “afterward, they can use the avatar to browse through different AI content” and “will also reportedly be able to dress up their AI avatars, allowing Glance’s screensaver to recommend real-life products to purchase by performing a reverse-image search.”

Glance is owned by InMobi, a company that provides ecommerce content for Motorola’s budget phones. “It also powers the new Samsung Galaxy feature that puts shoppable, AI-generated images of yourself in different outfits on your phone’s lockscreen,” The Verge adds.

“With Glance AI, TV screensavers become a smart content discovery, personalization, and AI-commerce experience,” says DirecTV SVP of Product Marketing Vikash Sharma in an announcement. “DirecTV audiences who stream TV through our Gemini devices will now get the opportunity to reimagine their interactions with their TV screen, with personalized content, entertainment, news, and shopping recommendations in real time.”