You Can Now Catch Up on Your Favorite Show with Prime Video's AI Video Recaps

Amazon’s Prime Video is rolling out AI-generated video recaps to help viewers catch up between seasons, the company announced in late November.

The feature “utilizes generative AI to create theatrical-quality season recaps with synchronized narration, dialogue, and music,” Amazon said. It will initially be available in beta for select Prime Originals, including Fallout, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and Upload.

Prime Video previously introduced X-Ray Recaps, an AI-powered feature that summarizes complete seasons, episodes, or segments. At the time, Amazon emphasized that the AI model included guardrails to prevent spoilers.

While audiences are already familiar with AI-generated text summaries—whether in phone notifications or Google search results — video recaps mark a step into a more immersive and potentially disruptive experience. They could be especially useful for viewers who need a quick refresher on what happened in earlier seasons.

Competitors are also exploring AI in entertainment. YouTube TV offers a “Key Plays” feature that helps users catch up on live sports games. While the algorithm currently focuses mainly on key offensive plays in baseball, it helped YouTube TV win its first Technical Emmy Award.

Netflix has applied generative AI on the production side. Earlier this year, it used AI in the Argentine show The Eternaut to generate a scene of a collapsing building. Subsequent projects, including Happy Gilmore 2 and Billionaires’ Bunker, used AI to create younger versions of characters and assist with pre-production design, respectively.

The rise of AI in film and video has sparked debate. Some artists worry that AI, often trained on existing works without permission, could threaten creative livelihoods. Others argue that AI tools, by automating tedious tasks in animation or special effects, could expand the capacity for artists to create.

Whether you're for it or against it, one thing is certain: AI has revolutionized the way we operate. Beyond creative purposes, AI has found its place as a helping hand in software development, and even audio-video testing and QA.