Adding a content-discovery tool to the mix, Tubi has introduced a personalization engine to its free, ad-supported VOD service.

Tubi said its new platform, which will help to surface content from its library of more than 7,500 titles, uses A.I. and deep learning technology to program and personalize its AVOD offering.

The service has also introduced an onboarding process (initially on iOS devices) that can “fast-track” a new user into its new personalized experience, which continues to evolve based on viewing behavior.

Tubi said it new content personalization engine is based on algorithms and technology that were developed in-house.

“Machine learning is essential for streaming services by providing a customized experience for each consumer.  If you are not leveraging machine learning to delight your audience, you don’t have a future,” Farhad Massoudi, Tubi’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Tubi has raised $35 million so far, and counts Lionsgate, MGM and Stanford University among its backers.

RELATED: Tubi TV Raises $20M More

TiVo and Rovi completed their merger almost a year ago, but the companies are still combining and integrating technologies that entered from both sides.

Along those lines, TiVo has introduced the Personalized Content Discovery platform, a product that weaves in tech and product from Digitalsmiths (acquired by TiVo in 2014) and Veveo, a voice search startup acquired by Rovi in 2014.

RELATED: Rovi To Buy Video Voice Search Specialist Veveo For $62M

TiVo has “created one full stack from those products,” Pratik Patel, director of product management, advanced search and recommendations at TiVo, said.

He added that Digitalsmiths had added the concept of customization for search providers in the form of business rules that could, for example, enable search results to prioritize free VOD or transactional VOD options.  TiVo said the platform is capable of searching across content catalogs available to the consumer, including linear TV, VOD, and OTT fare.

To surface more content, the system also supports a conversational search approach that, for example, would pull results when a viewer tells it to “Show me something funny,” “Find movies with  Tom Hanks,” or ask it to locate nostalgic movies from the ‘80s or to find a specific football game that will be shown on TV.

TiVo said the resulting platform will enable video operators to integrate search, recommendations and analytics with voice.

TiVo hasn’t announced how the newly integrated platform will be introduced in its retail products as well as those that are distributed by TiVo’s MVPD partners. More detail is expected to be shared this fall.  In the meantime, ZatzNotFunny reported Monday that recent FCC filings alongside “industry chatter” indicate that TiVo is nearing the launch of a retail voice remote.  He had reported earlier that TiVo had also submitted some trademark requests for “Vox”-branded products that could potentially use voice search capabilities.

RELATED: TiVo May Soon Get Its Voice

Regardless of the exact timing, the move will enable TiVo to add a voice search function that’s already offered today from MVPDs such as Comcast (for X1), DirecTV and Dish Network, whose initial voice remote, launched last year, already uses TiVo/Rovi technology.

The vast majority of pay TV subs with DVRs – about 84.3% -- use them to record sports, a clear indication that live sports are not “DVR-proof,” a new survey from Thuuz Sports found.

The survey of more than 1,000 pay TV subs who are also sports fans conducted in partnership with Ring Digital, also found that 84% of those sports DVR users do so several times a month.

As for the reasons, 75% said they use the DVR as a backup when they can’t watch the game live, 58% use it as a backup when they might miss the start of a contest, and 58% like to skip ads. It’s the latter use-case that Thuuz believes opens the door to a premium-ad-free highlights product.

The study, they said, showed that 70.1% of sports fans would be “extremely” or “very” interested in the concept of a service that automatically curates and personalizes highlights from recently recorded games, and that they would expect to pay an average of $11.74 per month for such a service. About 65% said they would expect to pay more than $10 per month.

Thuuz, of course, is enthused about these findings because they fit well with a product set that uses metadata and algorithms to keep viewers apprised of live games, ranking them based on their excitement level. In mid-2015, the company began to talk up a new app called Thuuz Highlights that adds more personalization to the mix by enabling fans to build highlight reels based on games recorded on a set-top DVR, in a pay TV provider’s VOD library, or stored in the cloud for streaming.

RELATED: Thuuz Pitches Personalized TV(subscription required)

Thuuz’s announced partners include Fox Sports, NBC Sports, Charter Communications, Dish Network, Liberty Global, TiVo and ThinkAnalytics, among others. Of that group, Comcast has testing a DVR In-Game Highlights feature that lets viewers jump to big plays in recorded football and soccer matches (Update: Comcast did not employ Thuuz technology for that DVR test). 

“Thuuz is all about enhancing fan experiences for games and highlights through metadata indicating the best moment to tune-in, which can also be extended to automatically assemble personalized playlists for each subscriber,” Warren Packard, CEO of Thuuz Sports, said in a statement. “These survey results strengthen our commitment to personalized, real-time sports video highlights as a growth strategy for TV operators, sports networks, leagues and teams.”

“Sports are best viewed live, but this survey highlights the fact that most fans with DVRs regularly use them to customize their sports viewing in a near-live fashion, added Brian Ring, principal of Ring Digital. “Indeed, our dataset provides strong evidence that a multi-billion-dollar opportunity exists for TV providers and sports networks to super-serve this user behavior, creating a better TV bundle.”

Say goodbye to the American couch potato. No longer are TV viewers content to just sit on the couch, flip through channels until they find something semi-entertaining. Today, they don't think twice about fast-forwarding through irrelevant ads or cutting the cord on cable packages. They expect seamless, on-demand and more personalized viewing across whatever screen they want to watch their favorite content.

The recent shifts in TV-viewing habits are nothing short of revolutionary. Aided by a wave of new Internet-based technologies, the medium has been transformed into something viewers take an active part in shaping.

From media companies to advertisers, everyone has to adapt to this radically changing environment. We must come to terms with the fact that traditional one-way television has experienced the same fate as black-and-white sets and rabbit-ear antennas.

Television Comes Back to the Living Room? 

 The consequences of this sea change have been dramatic. The pace of cable and satellite subscription cancellations – so-called "cord cutting" – has accelerated, up 12 percent this year. Cord-cutters have given way to a separate group known as "cord-nevers" – the quarter of millennials who never signed up for cable in the first place, and likely never will.

However, this doesn’t mean that TV sets are going dark. For the first time ever, the majority of U.S. households have at least one TV connected to the Internet. That's 6 million more homes than just a year ago. And consumers are also starting to prefer TV-connected devices like Apple TV, Roku and gaming consoles in lieu of traditional cable. According to Adobe Digital Insights data, these devices have seen 143% sales growth since last year. When we consider all the ways in which consumers now access TV content, overall use has risen 2.6% for average household viewing. 

When the term “TV Everywhere” was first coined, the industry anticipated that mobile devices would become a dominant means for viewers to enjoy TV content; the numbers indicate this is no longer happening. Consumers have brought TV back into their living rooms, albeit in a completely different form.  

Ad Dollar Tug-of-War

When it comes to monetization, the industry is at a juncture point. As audiences become more transient across linear and digital screens, the ad dollars have not caught up to a multiscreen environment. As much as this poses a challenge, this story is one about opportunity. With TV content being unleashed across digital channels, a flood of new data becomes available. Like with the best mobile apps or desktop websites, data is the key to building audience intelligence and serving experiences that are more relevant and personalized. Advertisers would be able to drive higher ROI and media sellers can charge more for specific audience profiles. And, this data is also beginning to be used to make linear television more relevant and personalized too.

With audiences increasingly ignoring ads that are irrelevant to them, this becomes more critical than ever before. If a beauty retailer wants to target female millennials, they must go beyond blanketing an ad based off the characteristics of a particular show and engage a specific segment of viewers that can actually act on the ad. It’s also important that female fans aren’t getting hit with the same ad on every device they use multiple times throughout the day.  Managing a cross-device audience is paramount in today’s multi-screen advertising execution.

TV advertising is going through one of the biggest shifts the industry has ever seen. With data as the foundation, we can get to a place where consumers receive more personalized content, while advertisers and media sellers can better engage viewers with higher ROI.  

Getting Personal

Simply getting content to viewers where and when they want it – once the central challenge – is no longer enough; consumers now expect experiences that are tailored specifically to them. As we look ahead, the ability to refine content discovery and recommendations with either hinder or propel audience engagement. With an increasing number of content options, this is even more important.

Data has another big role here, as media companies must gather data from various channels to build an understanding of individual viewers – at scale. Emerging technologies such as machine learning and data science will become more critical, as a means to differentiate when competition heats up.

Imagine being served a TV show based off everything from how quickly you abandoned other shows to your most-watched genres. Or, visualize an interface that not only displays your favorite channels but also pulls from a Facebook feed to learn what your friends are buzzing about.

TV will always have a central place in American life, but viewers will no longer be the unwitting subjects of a one-way experience; they will be driving that experience. Media companies face a choice: either empower viewers to watch what they want and deliver highly engaging experiences, or get left behind.

-Jeremy Helfand is Vice President, Primetime at Adobe