Prime Video‘s home screen has looked the same for years, with rows of tiles that rarely matches what you actually want to watch. Amazon is betting AI can change that, and Jeff Bezos is personally driving the effort.
Bezos reportedly directed Prime Video head Mike Hopkins to overhaul the streaming service so AI sits front and center, according to Reuters. The project carries an internal codename, Lighthouse, and it’s already reshaping how the app might work.
What’s changing on Prime Video?
The redesign would rebuild the home page around AI-generated recommendations instead of the fixed grid every subscriber currently sees. One version Prime Video executives discussed includes tiles built around prompts like “action movies from the 1980s” or “Christmas rom-coms,” shaped by your own viewing habits.
Amazon is also weighing whether to fold its Alexa voice assistant into search, so you could just say what you’re in the mood for instead of typing it out. Traditional search isn’t going anywhere either, and the top of the screen would still hold space for highlights like Thursday Night Football, the NFL game exclusive to Amazon.
What’s driving Bezos’s sudden push for AI?
The Lighthouse project didn’t start as a routine product update. Reuters reports the project grew out of a tense meeting last fall, where Bezos told Prime Video executives their original plans didn’t lean hard enough into AI and personalization. The team scrapped that version entirely and rebuilt it from scratch under global design lead Kam Keshmiri. Bezos has stayed personally involved ever since, which is interesting given how far he’s stepped back from daily Amazon operations since 2021.
There’s also a much larger story behind Prime Video’s redesign. Amazon has committed close to $200 billion in capital spending this year, largely tied to AI, on top of an initial $23 billion investment split between OpenAI and Anthropic.
Lighthouse is one piece of Amazon’s plans to strengthen its AI reputation while rivals keep moving quickly. Currently, Prime Video currently holds just 4.2% of US television viewing, falling behind YouTube, Netflix, and Disney+, which gives Amazon plenty of reason to get this right. However, Amazon’s other major AI project, which is an overhauled version of Alexa, has delivered mixed results so far, and the unit is reportedly still losing money.
Does having more AI actually benefit viewers?
Prime Video, like most popular streaming platforms, lets studios pay for prime placement on the home screen. If personalized rankings start replacing some of that paid real estate, what you see first could depend more on your preferred shows instead of who paid the most. That would mark a real shift toward more honest recommendations which is good for viewers.
However, there is still some skepticism in this conversation. Netflix has already thrown similar AI fixes at the scrolling fatigue problem, and many viewers still complain of not finding anything bingeworthy to watch on the platform. It’s also unclear if Prime Video’s redesigned AI-first approach would make the paid placement disappear entirely or simply relocate it into the algorithm itself, which wouldn’t be much of a win for viewers.
For now, Amazon is testing early versions with a small group of users, and feedback could still reshape the final layout. Whether Lighthouse actually eases your scrolling fatigue, or just dresses it up differently, is something you’ll only know once it lands on your screen.
