Data Visualization Engineer Intern

Remembering 'Max'; Netflix's old "AI" Search before AI was even A thing. A trip down memory lane to remember one of Netflix's early and most interesting experiments to help you find what to watch next. If you were streaming on a PlayStation 3 back in 2013, you might remember an incredibly quirky feature popping up on your screen. Over the years, Netflix has experimented with a much more interactive approach to solving choice paralysis and while AI search is currently in testing, we wanted to revisit a feature that's over 10 years old and didn't last forever, but helped you decide what to watch next. They called it Max. No, not HBO Max, just Max, presumably to help you get the MAXimum out of Netflix. Part virtual assistant, part game-show host, Max was an attempt to make deciding what to watch feel like less of a chore and more of an event. Let's take a trip down memory lane and look at one of Netflix's strangest and, sadly, short-lived experiments. According to one write-up, it was developed by Jackbox Games, a games studio that recently teamed up with Netflix Games division to bring a special collection of their Jackbox Party games to the streamer. When did Max launch? Max officially rolled out on June 28, 2013. At the time, it was exclusive to the PlayStation 3 app - which made sense, as the PS3 was the most popular Netflix streaming device in the world back then, though it was among the numerous devices that got discontinued with the most recent Netflix UI overhaul. The idea was to test it on the PS3 first, with the promise that if it performed well, Netflix would expand Max to other devices like the iPad. (Spoiler alert: That didn't quite pan out.) "If Max performs at the level he promises, we'll expand his repertoire and make him available on other devices in the future, likely the iPad next," Todd Yellin, VP of product innovation at Netflix (who was with the company through December 2022), wrote in a blog post announcing the feature, which is no longer online. What did Max actually do? Max was essentially a comedic recommendation engine designed to gamify finding what to watch next. If you didn't know what you wanted to watch, Max would swoop in with some quirky dialogue and guide you through a few mini-games to figure out your mood. If you remember the irreverent trivia game series You Don't Know Jack, Max's vibe will sound incredibly familiar - and for good reason. Netflix actually partnered with Jellyvision (the creators of You Don't Know Jack) to build the interface. When you engaged with Max, he would offer you a few different ways to find a show or movie: * The Rating Game: Max would show you a few titles and ask you to rate them on a 5-star scale. Based on your ratings, he would calculate a personalized suggestion. * The Celebrity Mood Ring: Max would show you two actors (e.g., Bruce Willis and Michelle Williams) and ask who you'd rather watch. He would then suggest a title featuring the actor you chose. * The "Either/Or" Genre Pick: You'd be asked to choose between two comically specific, polar-opposite genres - like "Talking Animals" or "Tortured Genius." * Max's Mystery Call: If you were feeling completely indecisive (or adventurous), you could just let Max pick something blindly for you. A digital gift box would appear on screen, and whatever was inside would immediately start playing. If Max gave you a suggestion, you could ask him for a quick "30-second pitch" where he would playfully explain why you should watch it before you hit play. Celebrity Mood Ring on Max - Ironically, if you selected either of these as of right now, they'd return zero results A video explaining the feature, presented by then Pedro Freitas, Senior Manager of Product Innovation (who we found an inactive Twitter account for but couldn't find out if he's still working at Netflix), diving into the feature, and boy, is it a blast to the past. Many of the features, and even the titles, presented in the UI are long gone. This was back when Netflix let you rate things out of five rather than the thumbs-up, double-thumbs-up, and down we have now. This was back when Disney titles were streaming, so you could watch The Avengers, Brother Bear 2, and Cars. You can also see a Popular on Facebook row from when Netflix (and most apps back then) encouraged you to link to your Facebook so you could share with your friends, and even had your avatar as your Facebook profile picture. Why was Max discontinued? Despite being a fun, novel idea, Max just didn't catch on with the wider subscriber base. It required too much active participation when most people just wanted to hit a button and zone out. Plus, as one user pointed out on Reddit years later, the feature had its flaws. If you used Max multiple times, you'd often end up seeing the same small pool of movies and shows. It felt a bit rigid compared to the seamless, data-driven recommendation algorithms Netflix was perfecting behind the scenes. By May 2015, users started noticing that Max had quietly vanished from their PS3 apps. Netflix customer service reps at the time confirmed that the feature was officially retired because it simply never gained the traction executives had hoped for. The legacy of Max. While Max is long gone, the problem he/it was trying to solve - the endless scrolling and choice paralysis - is something Netflix has continued to tackle. Max's spiritual successors can be seen in features like the short-lived "Surprise Me" (or Play Something) shuffle button, which Netflix introduced in 2021 and quietly discontinued in early 2023. The latest iteration to help you is their vertical video feed, which shows you a preview of popular clips from various Netflix shows or movies in the hope you jump over. Do you remember Max? Do you wish Netflix would bring it back somehow? Let us know in the comments down below.

The creator playbook goes corporate: the tiktok-ification of everything. May 18, 2026 On April 30, 2026, Netflix rolled out "Clips," a personalized, swipeable, vertical video feed inside its mobile app. The company pitched it as a curated highlight reel to help members decide what to watch next without endless scrolling. Five years ago, the wave of TikTok clones was easy to dismiss as a passing imitation cycle. But today, it has become the prerequisite for attention; LinkedIn, sports leagues, retailers, CPG brands, and now streamers have all converged on the same interface, and on the same distribution logic. This is what the creator playbook looks like: vertical, personalized, and scalable. Streaming and broadcast. The pattern across "big streaming" in 2026 is consistent: build a TikTok style discovery layer inside an app originally designed for the living room Netflix Clips, launched April 30, 2026. Image: Netflix Netflix. Netflix Clips ships as a discovery tool. It's an in-app highlight reel of trailers and moments from existing originals. CTO Elizabeth Stone has been explicit that Netflix isn't trying to be TikTok. It's trying to solve the discovery problem TikTok exposed. Disney Verts, launched March 12, 2026. Image: Disney+ Disney+. Disney+ is following close behind. At CES 2026, the company announced plans to roll out Verts. The new feed is expected to mix original short form content, repurposed social clips, and scenes adapted from existing films and series. Tubi Scenes, launched November, 2024. Image: Tubi Peacock and Tubi. Peacock and Tubi have added their own vertical surfaces, with Tubi's "Scenes" feature live since 2024. Fox. Fox Entertainment launched Fox Creator Studios, a digital first division that partners directly with creators on formats and IP, opening with food content from Gordon Ramsay, Rosanna Pansino, Jolly, Sorted Food, Food Theorists, and Little Remy Food. The legacy distribution moat, owning the home screen, the cable bundle, the linear schedule, has been eroded by viewers who now spend hours a day inside vertical feeds. If the streamer can't surface its own content in a format the audience already prefers, the audience will find something else inside TikTok or Shorts that they like just as much. | Company | Product | Launched | Content type | | Tubi | Scenes | 2024 | Short clips from movies and TV shows | | Peacock | Can't Miss Clips | 2025 | Highlights and can't-miss moments | | Netflix | Clips | April 2026 | Trailers, moments from originals | | Disney+ | Verts | March 2026 | Original short form content, repurposed social clips, and adapted scenes. | | Fox Entertainment | Fox Creator Studios | Later 2026 | Food content from Gordon Ramsay, Rosanna Pansino, Jolly etc. | The legacy distribution moat has been eroded by viewers who now spend hours a day inside vertical feeds. Publishers and revenue. If streamers are playing defense on attention, publishers are playing offense on ad dollars. If publishers can match creator economy ad formats with creator economy content surfaces, they can recapture some of the spend that has been migrating to TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. Whether the audience returns the visit is a separate question, but the inventory has to exist before the dollars can. What these examples have in common: the operating principles. Across streaming, publishing, professional networking, and CPG, the same set of principles keeps surfacing. Together, they read as a working definition of the creator playbook applied at corporate scale. Build the vertical surface inside your own product. Netflix Clips, Disney+'s upcoming feed, Tubi Scenes, LinkedIn's video tab, and Time's "Bytes" are all the same thing: a 9:16 feed embedded inside an app the company already owns. Treat distribution as the algorithm. The era of linear schedules and curated homepages is over. Personalized feeds have taken their place, and they need far more content to function. Native voice beats production value. Audiences and algorithms punish content that feels overproduced, generic, or obviously synthetic. What wins is AI for speed paired with a specific, imperfect, human voice. The real story of vertical video in 2026 is which companies are willing to take on the operating model that built TikTok: small autonomous teams, native voice, and scale. The creator playbook is the content strategy of the decade. The brands willing to actually run it are the ones everyone else will be studying in 2027 and beyond.

'Call My Agent!' Netflix movie: September release confirmed, first footage and everything we know. We just got a major update on the Call My Agent movie and better still the original series has returned. After years of on-and-off development and slow progress, Netflix confirmed a September 2026 release for the Call My Agent! movie is officially, with most of the original cast for the French series returning. Here is everything we know, and a recap of how we got here. Last night, the Call My Agent! cast was in Cannes for a red carpet photocall, and did a talk show appearance on France Télévisions' C A Vous. Alongside the promotion of the event movie, most of the cast played along for the - real - photographers, up to guest stars Vincent Macaigne and Laetitia Casta; though it remains unconfirmed, we can speculate that some of the footage may end up in the movie. Today, Netflix finally released the first footage - less a trailer than a short scene featuring Camille Cottin's Andréa Martel and Laure Calamy's Noémie Leclerc, and confirmed a global release for September 10th. Earlier this week, Netflix released the first promo stills for the movie. It seems like the release date for the project was supposed to remain confidential, but at the tail end of the talk-show segment, Laure Calamy let it slip that it would be in September. What is sure is that the Netflix French brass remains high on the project, with VP of French programming Pauline Dauvin highlighting it in the 2026 line-up in an expansive interview back in March. On December 4th, 2025, the official social media pages for Netflix France announced that the movie had officially wrapped. The movie shot mainly in Paris and the Île-de-France area. Both George Clooney and Eva Longoria are set for cameos in the movie, according to several reports (and statements by Clooney himself), but Netflix had no comment as to whether they would appear or additional details. They are also absent of the first released stills. Confirmed in early September by original creator Fanny Herrero, who was accepting an award in Le Havre, the Call My Agent! (original title: Dix Pour Cent) movie has been confirmed to be in production for global release on Netflix, while original broadcaster France 2 and France Télévisions are confirmed to co-finance the project (and a second-run broadcast on France 2 or on streaming platform france.tv later on). Meanwhile, after having been removed last July, all four seasons of the original show are back on Netflix globally as of November 23rd. The logline is below: "Five years after the ASK agency closed, Andrea wants to become a director. But when she loses her lead actor just days before shooting starts, she has to bring her old team back together, sparking old friendships - and rivalries." The series itself is an ambitious one for French television: a dramedy set in the French film industry, focusing on talent agents who are not used to the limelight, it was long considered by Canal+ until public broadcaster France 2 ordered development in 2011. After an arduous process and questioning around the idea of bringing in A-list French actors, which would be easier through the producer of the series, legendary agent Dominique Besnehard, the first season was broadcast in 2015 under the guidance of Fanny Herrero. She brought in a team of writers in order to develop snappy, quick dialogue and interweave the personal and professional lives of the characters with harmony. Netflix, which had barely begun producing its own French originals, bought second-run rights for France but, most crucially, global broadcast rights to the show, and so all four seasons had been available under the name Call My Agent! The series is credited with launching the international career of Camille Cottin (Andrea) and also starting the relationship between creator Fanny Herrero and Netflix. The latter left Call My Agent! ahead of its final season to sign an exclusive deal with the platform, which led to the 6-episode dramedy Drôle/Standing Up in 2022. The show was cancelled after a single season, while Call My Agent was remade multiple times. Netflix aired the Indian remake, while competing platforms, including Prime Video for the British version and SKY for the Italian version, also produced their own adaptations. Ever since the final episode of Call My Agent! was broadcast in November 2020, producer Dominique Besnehard has been on the record several times to confirm a movie was in active development. But he has always insisted that the problem lay with the busy schedules of the entire cast, and the need to find a workable script; Herrero had left the show due to creative differences, but was finally confirmed to write the sequel last year, alongside Lison Daniel. All of these issues seem to be bygones, as the entire cast is confirmed to return alongside veteran director Émilie Noblet at the helm (Parlement, Zorro): Laure Calamy, Thibault de Montalembert, Grégory Montel, Nicolas Maury, Fanny Sidney, and Liliane Rovère. Planned guest stars include Laetitia Casta, Vincent Macaigne, Ophélia Kolb, and Anne Marivin. Longtime producers of the show, Besnehard, Harold Valentin, and Michel Feller are producing through Mon Voisin Productions and Mother Productions. Speaking to Deadline, Herrero said of the characters: "They are so inspiring, I love them all. And the fact that I left and it's been almost five years now since the last season was released, [makes] it so good to be back again together." No timetable has been set for release, though it is expected sometime in late 2026. Until then, Netflix might make a new deal to bring back the complete series of one of its first international hits. Are you excited to see the upcoming Netflix original movie? Let us know in the comments below.