Alexa Plus has a genuine use case that'll keep movie fans happy

If you've ever been trying to find a specific scene from a movie, you'll know how frustrating it is. You might be able to find a GIF or shot clip on YouTube, but if those draw a blank, you'll be left scrolling through hours of a film, just to find the scene and make a reference.

Well, no more, thanks to a new Alexa Plus feature which allows you to simply describe the scene and it will go straight to it. The AI-powered feature takes all of the guesswork out, allowing you to describe the scene exactly as you might to a friend or family member.

You'll be able to use the feature with thousands of Prime Video movies. It has been trained to understand scene descriptions, character names and famous quotes, and can use those to navigate quickly and efficiently.

According to a report by The Verge, the system can also find movies without the title being included in the description. That's where I think this could really shine – I'm dreadful with names, and can often picture a scene with absolutely no recollection of which film I saw it in.

The feature is built upon a combination of different AI models, including Amazon's own Nova, and Anthropic Claude. As you might anticipate with a new feature like this, it's currently limited to only indexed scenes in selected movies which have been bought or rented from Prime Video, or are streaming on Prime.

The feature is said to be rolling out even further, though, with more scenes and shows set to be included. There's no timeframe given for that, though, so we'll just have to wait for updates.

Still, I'm really impressed with this. With many AI features seeming to do things no-one really asked for, it's good to see something genuinely useful entering the fray. It's exactly the sort of thing I'd want a super-powered AI assistant to do, and I'm glad my ailing mind is now being supported appropriately.