Netflix Unveils AI-Powered Feature That Will Blend Ads With Shows and Movies

Netflix unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) for its advertisers at its Upfront event on Wednesday. The streaming platform is heavily investing in its new in-house ad platform dubbed Netflix Ads Suite, and it showcased some of the features and tools that advertisers can leverage. The company also unveiled several ad formats to help its clients reach their desired targets. Part of the new formats, Netflix is planning to use AI to blend ads with the shows and movies to make ad watching an immersive experience.

Netflix to Use Generative AI for Ads

In a newsroom post, the company detailed the announcements made at the Netflix Upfront event. While one half of the event was dedicated to announcing the returning and new shows, movies, and documentaries the company was working on, the other half focused on the new ad services and the Netflix Ads Suite.

The Netflix Ads Suite is a new advertising platform which is currently live in the US and Canada. Next week, it will be expanded in the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, and it is said to be available in all 12 countries where the ad-supported tier has been released by June.

The new ad platform comes with various tools and features. It is said to let advertisers target their content to more than 100 interests in over 17 categories. Additionally, they will also be able to tap into first-party data of Netflix, including users' behavioural insights. It will also provide clients with first-party measurement solutions to let them see the traction from the ad campaigns.

Finally, the company is also offering a new modular framework for ad formats. One of these uses generative AI to blend the ads with the theme of shows and movies. This means that when the user is watching the ad, they would not feel disconnected from the world of the content. Netflix says this will make the ads more relevant and drive better outcomes.

Some of the ad formats that will be available to advertisers include interactive midroll, where interactive ads will be played in between an episode or a movie, and pause ads, where ads will be played whenever the content is paused. These formats can be further customised using added overlays, call to action, second screen buttons, and more. These formats will be available in all ad-supported countries by 2026.

“So if you take away anything from today, I hope it's this: the foundation of our ads business is in place. And going forward, the pace of progress is going to be even faster,” said Amy Reinhard, Netflix's President of Advertising.