A little over a year since the beta release of its conversational AI search and discovery tool, Cineverse is making cineSearch commercially available to business customers. The Los Angeles startup says its AI-powered framework “solves” the content-hunt quandary for digital networks and streaming services, finding programming across all streaming platforms. Cineverse is making cineSearch available for commercial licensing to OEMs and streaming platforms via the company’s own sales team and through Google Cloud Marketplace. CineSearch was developed using Google’s AI ecosystem — specifically Vertex AI platform and the Gemini 2.0 Pro model. Continue reading CineSearch Is a New AI Discovery Tool for Streaming Content

The Browser Company of New York has halted development of its Arc web browser to concentrate its energies on an AI-powered product called Dia, which was first announced late last year. CEO and co-founder Josh Miller says The Browser Company will continue to fix security issues and deliver other critical updates for the Arc product, but no new features will be forthcoming. Dia, now in an alpha testing stage, is “an entirely new environment — built on top of a web browser,” according to the product’s website. Miller says that while “Arc had real momentum,” the current era marks “the arrival of AI browsers.” Continue reading Dia: The Browser Company Is Testing a New AI Environment

Amazon Music has unveiled an AI search tool for music discovery, rolling out in beta on iOS to select Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers in the U.S. Powered by Amazon Bedrock, the feature aims to help listeners learn more about their favorite artists. Called Explore, it provides richer recommendations, including curated music collections, and the search results can be used to create AI-generated playlists that are based on an artist, according to Amazon. “This experimental feature includes results for many of your favorite artists today and will continue expanding to include more over time,” Amazon adds. Continue reading Amazon Music Beta Tests AI Search in iOS for Unlimited Subs

Google is launching AI Mode for its search platform, an interactive tool that functions much like a chatbot, allowing users to fine-tune queries with follow-up prompts. In the next few weeks, an AI Mode tab will appear in Google Search and in the Google app search bar. Following the introduction of AI Overviews last year, the company began experimenting with AI Mode early this year. “As we’ve rolled out AI Overviews, we’ve heard from power users who want an end-to-end AI Search experience,” explains Google in detailing the evolution of AI Mode. The new tool will also test various ad placements. Continue reading Google Is Reimagining Search with Launch of AI Mode in U.S.

Netflix is testing a short-form video feature for mobile to compete for the attention of those spending time on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. The news came out of the company’s inaugural product and tech event where it also shared plans for an OpenAI-powered search tool that lets users describe their desired content conversationally. Netflix plans to introduce improved real-time recommendations and a redesigned TV homepage, rolling out globally in the coming weeks and months, according to Chief Product Officer Eunice Kim, who presided over the event with Chief Technology Officer Elizabeth Stone. Continue reading Netflix Highlights Original Shows in New Vertical Shorts Feed

YouTube is testing a new AI Overviews feature for search and discovery powered by Gemini. A “small number” of YouTube Premium subscribers in the U.S. will notice a video results carousel popping up for some English-language search queries. The feature taps AI to highlight clips from videos deemed most helpful for a particular search. Initially, the feature will appear in response to practical inquiries, aiming for a more helpful response to things like product inquiries and requests for information about a place or activity. The idea is to provide quick highlights from several videos. Continue reading YouTube Testing Gemini-Powered AI Overviews for Searches

As enterprises rely more heavily on AI integration to compile research and summarize things like meetings and email threads, the need for contextual search has become increasingly important. AI startup Cohere has released Embed 4 to make the task easier. Embed 4 is a multimodal embedding model that transforms text, images and mixed data (like PDFs, slides or tables) into numerical representations (or “embeddings”) for tasks including semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and classification. Supporting over 100 languages, Embed 4 has an extremely large context window of up to 128,000 tokens. Continue reading Cohere’s Multimodal Embed Model Organizes Enterprise Data

Perplexity joins the list of AI companies launching agents, debuting the Perplexity Assistant for Android. The tool uses reasoning, search, browsers and apps to help mobile users with daily tasks. Concurrently, Perplexity — independently founded in 2022 as a conversational AI search engine — has launched an API called Sonar intended for enterprise and developers who want real-time intelligent search, taking on heavyweights like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. While to date AI search has largely been limited to answers informed by training data, which freezes their knowledge in time, next-gen tools can pull from the Internet in real time. Continue reading Perplexity Bows Real-Time AI Search Tool, Android Assistant

Samsung has made a tradition of opening CES with a “First Look” event the night before exhibits open in Las Vegas. This year, that January 6 event introduced the theme “AI for All: Everyday, Everywhere,” with artificial intelligence allowing devices like TVs to intuitively (and sometimes autonomously) make choices that enhance our lifestyle. Samsung sees TV as “no longer just a screen, but a companion that enriches your home.” In addition to displays, Samsung also plans to introduce its “Vision AI” technology across various home appliance and mobile devices in 2025. Continue reading CES: Samsung Aims to Bring Its ‘Vision AI’ to TVs and Homes

The AI search wars are officially on, with Google giving Gemini access to its online answer engine just hours before OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search. Google is primarily targeting developers with its new feature, “Grounding with Google Search,” though the Alphabet company used the occasion to also tout its new search return template, AI Overviews. Launched last week, ChatGPT Search offers responses in real time using a conversational format. Initially, it is available only to ChatGPT Plus and Teams subscribers as well as those on the SearchGPT waitlist as part of ChatGPT’s existing interface. Continue reading AI Search Wars Heat Up as OpenAI and Google Add Features

Hailuo, the free text-to-video generator released last month by the Alibaba-backed company MiniMax, has delivered its promised image-to-video feature. Founded by AI researcher Yan Junjie, the Shanghai-based MiniMax also has backing from Tencent. The model earned high marks for what has been called “ultra realistic” video, and MiniMax says the new image-to-video feature will improve output across the board as a result of “text-and-image joint instruction following,” which means Hailuo now “seamlessly integrates both text and image command inputs, enhancing your visuals while precisely adhering to your prompts.” Continue reading MiniMax’s Hailuo AI Rolls Out New Image-to-Video Capability

Reddit will soon add AI-generated summaries atop its search results, co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman told investors on a Q2 earnings call last week. The company will later this year begin testing AI-powered search result pages that “summarize and recommend content,” said Huffman, who expects the technology will help Reddit users “dive deeper” into content and aid in discovery. Huffman mused monetization strategies, including boosting ad inventory and possibly installing a paywall to differentiate premium content. The discussions accompanied news that Reddit lost $10.1 million in Q2, which saw revenues of $281 million, a 54 percent increase year-over-year. Continue reading Q2 Report: Reddit Adds Users, Narrows Losses, Preps for AI

Microsoft has begun the release of Bing generative search, making it available for “a small percentage of user queries.” The company says it will solicit user feedback and undertake further testing prior to a broader rollout. Google began dabbling in what it called the Search Generative Experience last summer, then upped the ante by adding a search-optimized version of its Gemini model this spring. The journey was not without controversy, something Microsoft will surely try to avoid. Microsoft says its new AI-driven search functionality “combines the foundation of Bing’s search results with the power of large and small language models (LLMs and SLMs).” Continue reading Microsoft Testing Bing Generative Search for User Feedback