Millions of households in the UK are familiar with the challenge of spending more time searching for something to watch than actually watching it due to the plethora of channels and streaming options available. EE, a company owned by BT that now offers broadband, TV packages, and mobile services, has come up with a solution to address this issue. They are rolling out a new feature called Smart Search on their TV devices, aiming to compete with services like Freeview and Sky.
Smart Search is designed to understand users’ natural language descriptions of what they want to watch, allowing them to search by mood, theme, plot details, or even memorable quotes instead of specific titles. For example, users can say keywords like “Marty McFly,” “Great Scott,” or “sci-fi” to find the movie “Back to the Future.” The feature aggregates results from live TV, on-demand services, and various streaming apps, presenting them in a unified interface for convenience.
Users can also make requests like “a funny detective show” or “a film with the actor from The Inbetweeners,” and EE TV will promptly provide relevant viewing options. In addition to Smart Search, EE is launching another update named Mood Matcher, an AI-powered tool that assists viewers in refining their choices further by answering questions related to mood, preferred genres, and themes to generate personalized recommendations. This feature is particularly useful for families who struggle to pick a movie on a Saturday night. While Sky offers similar tools, Freeview lacks comparable functionalities.
Luciano Oliveira, Director of Product, Home & TV at EE, emphasized the simplicity of using Smart Search and Mood Matcher, stating that users only need to describe what they want and answer a few questions for EE TV to handle the rest. EE is proud to be the first pay-TV service in the UK to introduce conversational, AI-powered search, surpassing similar voice search features offered by Sky.
Technology analyst Paolo Pescatore highlighted that faster content discovery enhances the overall viewing experience, especially in a landscape where audiences are inundated with numerous content choices. Smart Search and Mood Matcher are currently accessible through the EE TV app on compatible TVs, with forthcoming support for EE TV Pro and EE TV Box Edge devices. For more information, visit ee.co.uk/smartsearch.