Day1. Brainstorm on how to combine AI chat and video streaming.
Long story short. We have an idea to develop a design concept for integrating ChatGPT into streaming services such as Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, etc. to make searching smarter, easier, and more enjoyable. Our team of three will work on this project during weekends and update this blog after each meeting to share our progress, ideas, and any challenges we face. The first day was dedicated to brainstorming, and as a result, we realized that we do not have enough data to start the concept yet. This blog may be of interest to those in product companies who work in product design, management, and research.
Hi everyone🙂! My name is Alexander and I work as a product manager in a telecommunications company. Together with my wife Anastasia, who is a UI/UX and graphic designer, and my friend Alexander, design director in an IT company, we started a design project to implement an AI-assistant in streaming services search. The AI-assistant will be similar to ChatGPT and will be integrated into popular streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. We’re working on that project in our free time, mostly on weekends, and we decided to document our progress with blog posts. This helps us stay motivated and see how our ideas change over time, as the final solution is rarely the same as the initial concept.
As users of ChatGPT, we quickly realized the potential of this technology and saw a need for it to be incorporated into various products. This project is a way for us to experiment and learn about the technology, as well as contribute to its development. We are motivated by our desire to stay ahead of the industry and believe that the integration of AI in this field is the future.”
So, we need to figure out how the technology may be applied in variety of products.
One of us then said:
-What if we could create an AI chat assistant for streaming?!
Another said:
-Wow, why not?! Not just a smart search or an advanced recommendation system, but a smart advisor, an expert in not just movies, but also in your habits and tastes. It will be able to remember all the films in history and search for movies that you may not even think of, across genres and authors that you may not have considered!
It so happened that all three of us are closely following the evolvement of video streaming services and we always wanted to make something near to the streaming. And that was how the idea for our design project was born.
We saw the potential and realized that creating a design concept for this idea would be a valuable addition to our portfolios. The topic is hot and potentially in demand and useful. In short, we all loved the idea.
We quickly came up with the idea: AI chat helps to find answers to any questions. What if we integrate this AI chat into the search for streaming services? How can this solution enhance the user experience and bring more value to the business?
Gathered on a weekend, with laptops, iPads, notebooks, and snacks (Cinnabon, tea, and soda), we began our brainstorming session. Our initial idea was to create a smart search feature within streaming services for TV, mobile, and web. What will the UX be like? At first, we didn’t even question the idea! It’ll be cool, that’s it!
The idea of having AI on popular streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO, Disney+, Amazon, Hulu was just too cool to doubt it!
Right away, we began to discuss which platform and product we would start with and how the user would interact with the AI search/assistant. This is where things started to get interesting 🤔 .
We faced two challenges: a multitude of UI/UX options and a growing doubt about the existence of the problem we were trying to solve. As we started to work on specific UX designs, we realized that the scenarios were not as straightforward as we thought.
- 🙃 Will people be comfortable typing in search on the couch in front of their TV?
- 🤓 Will they prefer to use voice commands instead?
- 😱 Is there a risk of the assistant to scare users?
- 🤯 People don’t like to formulate open-ended questions, do they?
- 🧐 Will it be easier to Google it?
- 🤨 Who actually uses the search function on streaming platforms? Isn’t everyone just scrolling through the home screen?
- 😏 Have streaming platforms already figured out how to recommend content without forcing users to search?
- 🤔 What else could an AI chat bot give the user besides content search? Maybe providing information about programming and films, or assisting with technical issues.
- 😳 Does the presence of an AI chat bot meet the evolving needs of users?
- 🥺 Is there a problem with users finding content on streaming platforms?
Despite having some nice and potentially useful solutions in our notes and sketches, we realized that we needed to put them aside and conduct research and gather data first. After all, we are professionals😉! In general, we really wanted to start drawing right away and make a concept and assemble a prototype as soon as possible, but having cooled down, we decided to approach the issue thoroughly.
Gathering together the assumptions that we had, we compiled short questionnaires and went out to gather responses. It is also worth looking for existing analytics on the internet.
And also, just before our brainstorming session, the idea of creating a standalone app using the ChatGPT API for movie search came up. It’s an interesting idea and maybe we’ll explore it further in the future. Let it be the subject of the next post.
In conclusion, stay tuned! Next time I will share the results of our research and whether there is actually a problem with users finding movies on streaming services.
