Amazon uses artificial intelligence to create video summaries of its streaming shows

Amazon Prime Video is testing another new AI-powered generative feature to help you catch up on the show you’ve been watching before a new season starts. Video summaries It uses artificial intelligence to identify important plot points for the show and create a short but “theatrical quality” summary video that combines a selection of clips with music, dialogue and narration.

The Video Recaps feature is rolling out starting this week in beta on some English-language Prime Original series including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, to lift, Bush, The excavatorand He falls (before Season 2 premiere On December 17, 2025). Amazon says summaries are available, including Text-based x-ray summaries Introduced a year ago, it can be accessed through the recap button on the details page when a customer “moves on to the next season of a supported series.” At launch, it was limited to Fire TV devices “in the living room,” but will expand to additional devices in the coming months.

The feature first “analyzes the season’s major plot points and character arcs to understand the most important moments that will resonate with viewers deeply.” The AI ​​then selects the video clips and combines them with audio that includes sound effects and “comprehensive AI-generated audio narration.” The length of summaries will vary depending on the presentation, but in one image Shared in a blog post Season 3 summary Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan It appears to be three minutes long.

This feature can be a useful way to refresh your memory for shows that have particularly long gaps between seasons. But does Amazon really need to use AI to create these recaps and open the door to errors that could cause confusion while diving into a new season? Making “video recaps” available for every season of every show available on Prime could justify the use of AI, but there are fewer than 20 original drama series on the platform, and this release doesn’t include them all. Is that really that hard for a human to watch? fort?