Gracenote, the content intelligence business unit of Nielsen, has examined how AI is changing the ways people find and watch entertainment content in a report titled TV Search and Discovery in the AI Era. As adoption of AI-powered entertainment experiences grows — especially among older Gen Alpha respondents (ages 13 and 14) — trust in chatbot-generated responses to content-related queries is lagging.
Gracenote found that usage of chatbots for a range of purposes is gaining traction across generations, with 66 per cent reporting increased use over the past 12 to 18 months. Among Gen Alpha, that figure rises to 80 per cent, and more than half say they use chatbots daily.
That momentum is already shaping how this group discovers entertainment. When asked to name the best source for TV and movie recommendations, 49 per cent of Gen Alpha chose web- and app-based AI chatbots, topping streaming and cable service user interfaces and program guides (41 per cent) and internet search engine results (11 per cent). The trend extends beyond Gen Alpha: 57 per cent of all respondents said these tools could become, or already are, their favored way to get information on why, where and when to watch content.
At the same time, the data points to a growing divide between AI’s utility and users’ trust in its results. Respondents prefer chatbots over traditional search for complex questions (68 per cent vs 19 per cent), follow-up questions (69 per cent vs 18 per cent), direct answers (54 per cent vs 31 per cent) and comprehensive results (50 per cent vs 30 per cent). Traditional search, however, still leads on trustworthiness (50 per cent vs 27 per cent) and accuracy (46 per cent vs 33 per cent).
“People are rapidly embracing AI as a new way to search, discover and decide what to watch, especially Gen Alpha audiences, who already expect easy-to-use, conversational interfaces,” commented Tyler Bell, SVP of Product at Gracenote. “But adoption alone is not the story: trust is. The winning platforms will be those that can deliver viewing experiences people can actually rely on — grounded in vetted, timely and high-quality data.”
Skepticism regarding the accuracy of AI-generated results remains high, with three in four respondents saying they verify chatbot responses, mostly by cross-checking with internet search. That same caution carries into entertainment-specific use cases, such as content recommendations and programme availability. While 92 per cent of those surveyed rated internet search accuracy for entertainment as good or excellent, 85 per cent said the same of AI. Notably, among Gen Alpha, the gap nearly vanishes, with 95 per cent rating chatbot results favourably versus 99 per cent for traditional search. Across the study, chatbots were trusted most for TV and movie recommendations (26 per cent) and for helping users find TV, movie and sports programming (25 per cent).
Gracenote’s report comes as entertainment providers face mounting pressure to improve discovery in an increasingly fragmented content landscape. As libraries expand across services and platforms, audiences are spending more time choosing what to watch and placing greater value on tools that deliver immediate, accurate and relevant answers.
For streamers, device makers and media companies, the message is clear: helping audiences find programming faster and act on recommendations with confidence will depend not just on AI interfaces, but on the quality of the data powering them.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.advanced-television.com ’
