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Aug 10, 2026 — 6:21 AM ET
- Taking the cue from Netflix, Disney Plus is gaining a generative AI discovery feature to search for TV shows and movies using natural language.
- The ESPN mobile app is also picking up an AI search feature, giving users instant access to sports data, news, stats, and other historical information.
- These new AI features are currently in beta and only available to a small portion of app users.
It’s hard to escape generative AI today, especially considering the rapid adoption of AI features across a variety of devices and apps. But when implemented correctly, some of these tools can potentially improve the user experience. One of the most popular video streaming services is now hoping for a similar result with its latest beta.
In a blog post, The Walt Disney Company announced the rollout of an AI discovery feature in the Disney Plus app. This “beta experiment” is reportedly being undertaken with a small, unspecified batch of subscribers.
The discovery feature will seemingly appear at the top of the Disney Plus app’s home page on your television, with a row of prompts to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. There’s also a voice input option along with a keyboard interface to manually tell the AI what you want to see next.
This AI feature is designed to help viewers gain more control over what they watch rather than relying on their viewing history. One could always search for a favorite movie or TV show on the Disney Plus app. However, this tool reveals a long list of options by solely describing your mood or a specific genre that you’d like to watch. Since this is a beta rollout, there’s no word on when or if this feature will be expanded to cover all Disney Plus subscribers.
Fellow video streaming app Netflix introduced an AI search functionality in beta some months ago, so Disney Plus is by no means the first to the party.
The ESPN app is also gaining AI search #
In addition to Disney Plus, The Walt Disney Company also announced the rollout of an AI search functionality for the ESPN app. This lets you open the search tab and ask sports-related questions to receive stats, news stories, videos, and all other info from ESPN’s extensive content catalog.
Much like the Disney Plus feature, ESPN’s AI-powered search bar is also available in beta and only to “a subset of users.” It looks like the ESPN app will let users switch to the classic search experience, potentially through a settings toggle. However, the company didn’t reveal this info in the blog post.
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