NBUniversal’s Peacock streamer is revving up a number of new technology innovations that will roll out on the platform, including plans for an AI-powered Andy Cohen Avatar who will guide viewers through Bravo‘s big library of series as well as recommend new shows.
Cohen spoke Sunday at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas on Sunday alongside Matt Strauss, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, and host and writer S.E. Cupp.
Strauss opened the session by unveiling a series of new tech features and content formats coming to Peacock subscribers starting in the summer. The Andy Cohen avatar is designed to help users sift through hundreds of series in the Bravo library. As users provide Peacock with information about the shows and personalities that interest them, the Cohen avatar will pop up with recommendations, or it can pop up mid-episode to answer specific questions about what is going on during a particular episode or scene.
“It’s just really exciting, because it does tailor the experience for everyone. Everyone who loves Bravo has a different point of view and a different entry point, where it starts in one place, but where the [new Bravo-verse feature] can take you is an entirely different place. It also allows you the ability to say, ‘Wow, I love that. Click on that flip. Let me watch the whole episode. What’s the story? Why are they fighting? And then click on that, and then I’ll tell them. It’s really infinite and exciting,” Cohen told the SXSW crowd, after assuring them that it was him in the flesh, not a synthetic clone. Cohen is synonymous with Bravo as the host of “Watch What Happens Live” and the creator and engine of the “Real Housewives” franchise that is the platform’s cornerstone program.
Strauss described the Cohen avatar as “using generative AI to weave decades of Bravo footage into a first of its kind, personalized experience.” Cupp quipped to the IRL Cohen, “Andy, how does it feel to be an AI sherpa through the Bravo universe.”
The Cohen avatar appears to build off the feature that NBCUniversal has used during its 2024 Summer Olympics coverage that offers an avatar of famed sports announcer Al Michaels to help guide viewers through the voluminous Olympic matches and highlights offered via Peacock.
Strauss opened the hourlong session by laying out NBCUniversal’s evolving vision for Peacock and plans to augment the streaming experience. Strauss leaned into the idea that viewers generally are overwhelmed by streaming platforms that offer dozens if not hundreds of titles but little curation.
“We are the most connected society in history, but in a lot of ways, we’re more disconnected. Abundance can create emptiness, and streaming can feel like a casino, no sense of time, no sense of place, almost like you are staring through a glass wall,” Strauss asserted. “The next era of entertainment won’t be defined by bigger libraries. It will be defined by deeper worlds. Entertainment won’t just be something you watch, it will be something that you enter.”
In addition to the Cohen avatar, Strauss touted new vertical NBA clip formats coming to Peacock designed to allow fans to follow live games in a different way as well as to use them in their own social content. The same goes for Peacock’s vast archive of recent summer and winter Olympics highlights. The company is also working with Dick Wolf’s Wolf Entertainment to bring immersive detective games to the platform. Strauss emphasized the significance of the changes that are rolling out on Peacock this year.
“What I’m describing today is not a feature roadmap, it’s a commitment to the fans, not a reshuffled homepage, not a slightly upgraded rental shelf, not sending people elsewhere to find a more expansive experience. Streaming shouldn’t push people away from the worlds that they love. It should pull them deeper inside,” Strauss said. “This is how you super serve fandoms. This is how you will earn more share of time. This is how you keep communities where they belong inside the ecosystem that sparked them for 100 years. NBCUniversal has found that white space today, the white space is clear that glass wall era is ending, and the next era of streaming is immersive entertainment, connected, personal and built for fans and the communities they create.”
More to come
English (US) ·