- Versus is gearing up for Q4 or Q1 launches on major streamers
- Its patented visual AI search scans TV content and serves real-time predictive challenges via a mobile phone
- Testing around the World Cup showed impressive results for interaction, elongating session times and driving content starts
- The aim is to turn passive viewers into participants to drive meaningful engagement and retention for streamers
Tech company Versus has spent the past several years quietly building an AI-powered engagement platform that uses proprietary visual tech to gamify TV content via real-time predictive challenges, with the potential to drive meaningful engagement and reduce churn for streamers and sports leagues.
It hasn’t officially named names yet for customers of its latest tech but Versus CEO and co-founder John Vitti told us its gearing up for launches with major streamers in Q4 2026 or Q1 2027.
The company is working to transform passive viewing into participation, using patented AI tech for a visual search feature to scan live content on TV screens with a mobile phone. Then it instantly serves up personalized, gamified predictive question challenges and interactive experiences related to moments playing out in real-time on TV shows and live events, including sports.
It’s leaning into gamification as a psychology with increasingly tailored question sets to motivate users to engage, with the ability to accumulate points and prizes, climb leaderboards and play or challenge with friends and broader community features.
With the tech poised to be integrated into streamers or sports leagues mobile apps, the aim and promise is to elongate session times and boost retention and content start rates – factors which are increasingly important to streamers seeking profitable growth and where Versus beta testing around the World Cup has shown success.
Read on for more from Vitti about the tech, key learnings and early test results.
Integrations underway as streamers prioritize retention, engagement
Versus is currently integrating into streamers it has secured for the product ahead of upcoming launches, which Vitti said takes some time mainly due to the large-scale nature of partners bringing on the technology.
Versus product comes as subscriber growth in the streaming industry at large is poised to slow, making efforts to engage and retain customers ever more key. Churn is already a known issue in the streaming industry and progress on engagement that fuels retention could in turn help lower streamer costs related to having to reacquire subscribers that cancel or find new ones to replace those that churn.
And while not yet disclosing companies signed on, Versus’ original engagement product has already been used by major streamers and other industry partners, where its client roster for earlier tech is high caliber – counting Disney, HBO Max, Paramount+, Lionsgate, the NFL, UFC, Microsoft, Reddit and others among those it already works with. (To be clear, those are partners for Versus earlier streamer tech or products and none have been named as official customers where the company’s latest tech discussed here is set to soon land.)
The company has also attracted investment from the likes of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Eric Schmidt, Mark Burnett, Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman.
And its earlier streamers product has produced notable improvements for key metrics.
On aggregate, across partners (which include major streamers, sports leagues and others), Versus’ classic streamers product has produced significant impact with lifts in engagement, session time, retention, conversion and content starts—including up to 16 additional minutes per session, retention improvements of 4.5–9.5% and content-start rates above 53%, compared to an industry average around just 2%. (Note, content start rate metric reflects when a streamer or Versus recommends titles to a viewer and the user actually opts to start and watch that title).
To put it in terms of costs for streamers, Vitti claims that 9.5% reduction in churn translates to about $1 billion in annual savings for a major global streamer that, in general, is spending huge sums to replace or reacquire subscribers who churn. Which, if realized, is certainly not nothing.
Community, friend and team participation elements also show promise for helping user acquisition. For its original streamers platform product, Vitti said that on average, one Versus user brings in four new paying subscribers within the first 72 hours.
Per the CEO, these types of metrics only stand to improve with the company’s latest patented AI visual search technology and real-time gamified predictive challenges that’s poised to rollout in coming quarters – a notion supported by impressive recent test results around the World Cup and NFL games.
Beta testing with FourPlay on World Cup, NFL games
Ahead of broader streaming integrations, Versus over the summer launched consumer app FourPlay to test and refine its technology with live sports fans.
It first did so ahead of the FIFA World Cup, allowing fans to scan a live soccer match on their phones, answer predictive challenges to win points, compete on leaderboards and earn rewards. Since then, it extended to NFL games to test new features and incentives in order to learn what keeps people participating and coming back.
FourPlay isn’t intended to operate as a full-scale independent app, but rather a way to beta test the market and get real-time A/B testing to see what works and what doesn’t with real audience feedback to inform the latest technology Versus is bringing to streaming partners, where the experience would be white-labeled.
How it works
We watched a demo of the tech and experience, which, admittedly, was pretty cool.
The AI tech enables visual search where users can use their mobile phone to scan any screen (including non-TV screens like those at a stadium) and trigger a moment-specific interactive predictive challenge within three seconds. The real-time nature of that experience and capability was smooth and seamless when we watched Vitti do it against live content playing out across his TV screen.
And while an impressive demo is one thing, Versus is ready to perform in the wild to support as many people as streamers need.
“Our proprietary AI is built for scale, so it can consume all the content in real-time and do this for hundreds of millions of people in real time,” Vitti said.
Here’s how it plays out for a user:
Imagine a live football game or soccer match is on TV. With the app open on their mobile device (FourPlay in this case but it would be the streamers’ respective app once integrated and live) users can scan the TV screen and content.
Then the AI-powered platform generates dynamic, real-time questions or predictive challenges based on the live action – be it the outcome of a specific play in a football game or soccer match or the next plot move or event in a TV show.
For example, “Will Kansas City score a touchdown on this next play?” or a live call question “What happens in the next 60 seconds?” with option for answers like touchdown, a 30+ yard pass, a 12+ yard run or a first down.
Users accumulate points based on different predictions and correct calls, helping them climb leaderboards and win rewards. As people make predictive guesses, the interactive experience also serves AI-powered pro tips, such as “Kansas City scores TDs on 71% of red zone trips. Miami has stopped 2 of the last 3.”
And it gives community signals, such as 64% of participants predicting “yes,” Kansas City will score a touchdown on the next play, vs 36% on the app that say “no”.
See some example images of the tech below and how it appears in the FourPlay app:
Through subsequent questions and answers, the AI analyzes individual interaction patterns to learn about the user and serve the type of predictive questions they would stand to favor and do well at.
Over time a single user would start to see more personalized questions and two users in the same house or watching the same content at the same time could be served entirely different questions.
Testing was initially applied in live sports scenarios, which hold particular promise for the tech, but Versus’ tech can also extend to any type of programming including scripted or in-stadium at a live event.
‘Insane’ metrics
Testing around the World Cup with FourPlay “got a lot of people’s ideas working,” Vitti said, and led to many fun and fruitful conversations with potential partners excited about the potential.
Driving that enthusiasm, in part, is what test results for the latest iteration of the product have shown.
“The metrics from it have just been insane.”
Supporting that, here are some impressive stats he shared for FourPlay around the World Cup:
High user engagement: Users opened the app an average of 16 times per day, (with Vitti likening this volume of repeat visits to social media numbers for younger demos).
That number of repeat visits is notable, particularly as streamers try various approaches – like short-form vertical video feeds or scrollable fandom playlists and mobile games, among others – to encourage more regular use and make their apps daily destinations for users.
And beta Versus users didn’t just come back to the app but actively participated. During the World Cup, an average FourPlay user scanned 53 times a match and answered an average of 209 questions per game.
“It's that gamification as a psychology,” Vitti said – a concept driving Versus approach, we’ll get into more in a bit.
Lengthening session times: Notably, he disclosed that “we’re adding 71 minutes session time to the apps that we’re involved with,” as seen through World Cup and NFL testing.
For an industry where Wall Street believes money follows time spent and keeping users’ attention in a highly competitive and crowded space can be an uphill battle, that is quite an impressive amount of extra time for a session.
Boosting content start rates:
The platform also helps on the recommendations front. After a certain number of predictive challenge questions, the product serves up personalized suggestions of two TV shows or other content that users might want to watch next from a streamers’ library.
This too showed success in testing on FourPlay around the World Cup, delivering a 27% content start rate – again, compared to a 2% industry average.
These stats support the notion that Versus tech can provide impressive boosts for streamers on key metrics, particularly given how much effort and attention there is on getting users to come to streamers’ apps more often and stay longer.
Gamification as a psychology
At the heart of Versus platform, and what Vitti sees as critical to its distinction and success, is designing around gamification as a psychology where he noted the mind is built and likes to make predictions on outcomes or what’s coming next.
Distinction from sports betting
Answering predictive challenges against live sports content is one of the main use cases but questions might arise about how Versus stands out or compares to sports betting, which has widely proliferated with its own large market of apps and people wagering on different outcomes of gameplay.
However, in addition to the monetary outlays and rewards, Versus sees itself as distinct from the sports betting market, in part because of the real-time nature of questions its patented proprietary AI tech can deliver.
Traditional betting and predictions are often based on odds, Vitti explained. In contrast, Versus serves predictive questions and challenges based off unpredictable real-time happenings in live sports as they play out.
For example, LeBron James is fouled in the second quarter and Versus serves a question like, “Will he hit from the line?” – one that traditional betting based on odds or other factors wouldn’t be able to as the foul couldn’t have been foreseen.
“This is completely unique to us, and it makes sense because the content you're watching is dynamic,” Vitti said, adding that as what viewers consume changes, so should the questions served.
What testing taught Versus
Learnings around the World Cup and NFL games taught Versus a few things, including the importance of real-time questions and personalization, what’s motivating people to play and keep coming back and how community aspects can be powerful.
Real-time nature and personalization key
A main focus of the recent testing was to fine-tune that real-time play and predictive question sets around sporting events like the World Cup and other content.
What it learned is the real-time alignment from scanning content to making a related prediction about what happens in the next, say, 60 seconds of a game or show is key.
According to Vitti, those who tune in to watch a full sports game on TV are doing so because they’re interested in all of the moments – not just seeing a headline or final score.
So simpler or odds-based questions like “Who’s up by halftime?” or “Who will win the game?” or asking whether a scripted series murder case will be solved, likely aren’t all that interesting to an avid sports or content fans. And they’re types of questions casual fans might turn to skimming headlines or score reports to find out, rather than encourage gameplay or app engagement.
“The content’s dynamic, so your relationship should be dynamic as well. That was the biggest finding,” Vitti said.
And the tech continuously personalizes to keep the types of questions relevant to the user, and people engaged and predicting more.
“Even though you scan exact same game, same moment, you're going to get started getting more personalized interactions and experiences, which is why social media is so popular.”
Intrinsic vs Extrinsic drivers
Following the psychology thread, one of Vitti’s biggest surprises learnings was that intrinsic motivators were more powerful at driving sustained and repeat engagement than extrinsic drivers like potential to win money or other big prizes that are often seen in traditional gambling or betting.
While both are very important,, the co-founder was pleased to discover through testing that “intrinsic motivation led to healthier users.”
Motivators like reaching new levels, achieving status on leaderboards, progression, mastery, accuracy ratings, and streaks, “drove more people and better users,” he said.
In World Cup testing, users that appeared to be intrinsically motivated would shout about the app more to others, telling “way more than four” friends over 72 hours, as well as spend more time, scan more and come back more frequently, according to Vitti.
It goes back to the notion that when people are into sports or a TV show, they want to engage with friends – asking things like “Did you see what happened?” or boasting “I knew that was going to happen!”
And Versus’ work to tap into that mentality with personalized predictive challenges and other elements that may drive people to engage better than say, the promise of a Starbucks gift card.
It also goes to ego and human’s competitive and social nature, as testing showed people enjoyed competing with friends on playing streaks and trying to up their accuracy ratings.
Streaming partners were also very happy about the power of intrinsic drivers seen in testing, he said, as they likely don’t want to have to make promises of large rewards or prize outlays to reap benefits.
Community, team play stands out
Vitti, meanwhile, has been pleased with streaming partners’ openness to features like community sentiments and live chats that are fueling motivation to participate and engage.
He said team play, or playing the predictive challenges with friends watching the same live sport, was a standout aspect from the World Cup testing.
Versus platform allows users to see what friends are scanning, watching, playing and so on. Users can challenge friends or make a team to play together and against one another or other teams.
“That community aspect is very powerful,” Vitti said, calling it “another really interesting surprise”.
It goes back to the mindset that “watching stuff, playing stuff, is better with friends.”
The CEO believes this is where Versus sits in a sweet spot for interactive and shared TV experiences for friends around content and live sports.
Its platform doesn’t require quite the lift of gathering everyone together for a watch party, but it’s a bit more fun and engaging than simply shooting a “Did you see that?” text to friends.
Beyond gameplay: Driving content starts
Sports is the initial test case, but the technology can also apply to scripted or unscripted TV shows and other content.
Vitti cited similarities around the psychology and drivers for predictive challenge engagement against both sports and content like TV shows – with the common element being the ability and need to be in-the-moment and serve real-time dynamic gamified experiences tied to what users are seeing.
When integrated with streamers Versus analyzes user behaviors and input, using AI to also serve personalized recommendations in-between a batch of gamified questions, like two suggestions of shows to watch next.
As the aforementioned stats on content session starts show, that has proved fruitful in encouraging users to engage with another piece of content. This is also important for streamers trying to keep users and at a time when separate Hub Entertainment Research consumer survey data has shown many viewers feel recommendations from streaming services fall short.
But knowing what a viewer has watched is where the similarity between SVOD and Versus-driven recommendations ends, Vitti claims.
Versus knows not only what they’re watching and interacting with, but the types of questions users are good at predicting, which they interact with more versus less, what they’re sharing with friends and what those friends are watching.
“We know what they’re interacting with and we know that across the network,” he noted, adding “it’s much more data.”
So when Versus recommends a TV show to a viewer it gets that start more than a quarter of the time (as seen in the recent testing) compared to the industry average of just 2%.
“How do you get people to want to interact with your show and your content?” he posited. “You have to make it personalized. You have to make it relevant. You have to really understand the user, the audience.”
And with marketing teams and people fragmented, getting to that state isn’t easy – as identity continues to be a challenge in CTV and different people watching the same content might have very different personalities.
“You need our AI to dig in on each person to really uncover each person at scale,” he commented. “No marketing team can do that.”
Potential to conquest traffic
And since the technology can scan any visual to create a gamified experience, Vitti explained it means it can also support traffic conquesting or piggybacking off of other providers content and viewership to drive engagement for their own app.
For example, if a viewer was watching a live NFL game on YouTube TV but wanted to play and make predictions, it could do so from another streamer’s mobile app like say Disney+ (named here solely for example purposes). Where in theory, Disney, in this purely hypothetical scenario, could ride off of YouTube TV’s or another platform’s viewership and premium live sports content to drive engagement on its own mobile app with the Versus technology.
Whether consumers first think of a streamers’ app as a place to find this type of experience is perhaps another question.
Looking ahead
Versus near-term focus is integrations and rollouts with partners in the coming quarters.
And plans call to light up new sports, with Vitti saying soon the company will be able to cover every sport, TV show or movie.
From a streamers’ perspective, he said first the challenge was getting people to watch, followed by getting them engaged. Now the next challenge is turning viewers into participants.
Looking ahead, Vitti believes everything is moving towards interactivity and more visual experiences.
He cited a growing expectation for interactive content with the rise of social media alongside the current consumer behavior (and sometimes challenge) of viewers typically having a mobile phone in hand while watching TV, scrolling and only sometimes having the larger screen catch their attention.
But Versus is flipping that dynamic.
“We're motivating you to focus on the TV and still have your phone in your hand with the FourPlay app or the Paramount app or whoever,” he explained.