Netflix has its own, impressive AI-powered voice search

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Column ColumnPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Column Streaming StreamingPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Streaming Lowpass LowpassPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All LowpassNetflix has its own, impressive AI-powered voice searchA new voice feature helps viewers dive deep into Netflix’s catalog while circumventing Gemini and other assistants. A new voice feature helps viewers dive deep into Netflix’s catalog while circumventing Gemini and other assistants. by Janko Roettgers Janko RoettgersLowpass author, Verge contributorPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All by Janko RoettgersMay 7, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC Image: Netflix Janko Roettgers Janko RoettgersPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Janko Roettgers is a tech reporter and author of the Lowpass newsletter. A small subset of Netflix viewers just got a new way to find movies and TV shows.

The streamer recently started to test an AI-powered native voice search feature with some subscribers, prompting them to press the Netflix button on their remote control to ask for viewing recommendations. Once viewers press the button, they’re presented with a few search suggestions, including phrases like “I need a good cry,” “watch in the background,” and “help me stay awake. ” Each of these suggestions leads to a set of viewing recommendations, but there’s also an “Ask” button with a waveform icon.

Select it, and you’ll start an AI-powered voice search that delivers viewing recommendations in response to natural language prompts. I’ve had access to this new voice search feature for a few days now, and found it remarkable for two reasons: While still in beta, it’s impressive in its ability to serve up appropriate and interesting viewing recommendations to even the most esoteric requests. It also squarely circumvents the voice assistants and search features built into smart TVs and streaming devices, highlighting the power struggles between TV OS platforms and the streaming services running on them.

Netflix is currently testing its new voice search feature with select members in the U. I got access to the feature on a Chromecast with Google TV streaming dongle and a TCL Google TV, but wasn’t able to access it on Roku or Fire TV devices. Even users who have multiple devices running the same smart TV OS have reported that they were only able to access it on a subset of those devices.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.