TVOS software updates are rolling out to Roku devices in the coming months, including AI-powered voice functionality meant to improve content discovery by allowing users to ask their CTV device questions for more information about TV shows, movies and actors.
During a press briefing, Roku Director of Product and UX for Roku Voice Amit Desai said Roku Voice was purpose built to find TV content and is now evolving into a smarter tool.
With the update, users can ask questions about content and see the answers appear directly on their TV screen.
Some prompt examples include:
- What’s Barbie about?
- How scary is The Shining?
- What kind of fish is Nemo?
Users can also ask follow-up questions and the AI-powered Roku Voice will keep up with the conversation. If following the Barbie prompt example, a user could see options for movies similar to Barbie and then via Roku Voice ask, “Which one is more fun?”.
In addition to information after prompts, Roku’s platform also surfaces options to quickly launch into relevant content with one click based on the query.
The AI-powered voice feature will roll out to all Roku devices, enabled through the Roku voice remote and via the Roku mobile app that offers a virtual remote and voice-prompt functionality.
The new conversational voice content discovery feature from Roku uses a combination of in-house and commercial generative AI and Large Language Model technology, which a Roku spokesperson said helps “produce the best possible user experience.”
Roku isn’t the only one to bring genAI and LLMs paired with voice technology to its platform for user queries and more conversational interactions between viewers and their TV screens.
Google TV recently debuted Gemini – first on new Google TV-powered TCL devices but rolling out to other Google TV devices. On TCL Gemini is coupled with far-field smart TV microphones that take a remote or mobile phone out of the equation but for other Google TV devices, capabilities are enabled with a voice remote.
Last month Google TV’s Shalini Govil-Pai told StreamTV Insider that it enables natural conversations for families to have with their TV about content as they decide what to watch.
However, Google TV’s vision goes beyond content discovery, where it also sees applications for AI-powered voice queries to answer user questions around use cases like education, travel and shopping – with genAI providing voice-based responses back from the TV as well as text, while also surfacing related videos. For more on Google TV’s bets read here.
In another example, Amazon recently announced Alexa+ is coming to certain Fire TV smart TVs and streaming sticks – also enabling conversational back-and-forth with the TV via AI and voice prompts.
Some examples Amazon gave of Alexa+ capabilities include content discovery (like “Alexa show me a series like the one I binged last week”). Users can also ask about information in content, like an actor’s background in a movie or where a TV series was filmed. The Alexa+ feature for Fire TV also extends to live sports, telling users the score of their favorite team, offering player stats during a game and finding live events across various services. It also allows users to search for scenes across Prime Video movies, with TV shows coming soon.
As noted, on the content discovery front, more platforms are looking to genAI, LLMs and voice to help users find what to watch and more information with natural conversation. Indicative of that, Nielsen’s Gracenote in September debuted a Video Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, that’s meant to connect to platform and provider’s LLMs for content discovery to ground and validate their responses to entertainment queries, helping to avoid hallucinations or inaccurate outputs and ensure content information is up to date.
Additional Roku updates
In addition the AI-based voice features, Roku is teeing up a suite of other enhancements for its streaming platform software.
Sports: Roku devices are getting two new features to enhance the sports experience - Live Scores and Reminders.
With Live Scores, as users browse they’ll now see real-time score updates on game tiles to let viewers see results from multiple sporting events in one place. For those that don’t want spoilers, they can opt to hide the scores.
Reminders are meant to help keep users informed of time-sensitive sports events. Roku users will be able to set reminders for upcoming games on their TV screen and will be notified by Roku with a mobile notification when it’s time to tune in.
Trailer actions: On the press briefing Roku execs noted that trailers are one way many viewers decide what they want to watch. So now the CTV platform is making trailers more interactive with a ‘Ways to Watch’ button to allow viewers to jump right in if they see something they like, or an option to save for later.
Search is also expanding to more parts of the platform, including Roku’s What to Watch, Live TV Zone and Live TV Channel Guide.
In hardware news, after debuting the Aurzen Roku TV Smart Projector Cube last month, Roku has another rolling out. The new Vankyo Roku TV Smart Projector H500R will be available at Walmart starting this week.