Netflix revamps TV app with bigger previews, real-time recommendations, and AI search on iOS

Netflix is rolling out a significant redesign of its television interface to streamline navigation, ease content discovery, and prepare the platform for a wider range of media formats. The update—currently being tested with a subset of users—marks the company’s most notable visual refresh since its smart TV debut and reflects shifting viewer expectations in an increasingly crowded streaming market.

The most obvious change is structural: The familiar vertical sidebar is gone, replaced by a horizontal navigation bar across the top of the screen. This new menu consolidates key sections: search, TV shows, movies, games, and the new ‘My Netflix’ hub into a cleaner, more accessible format. The ‘My Netflix’ tab, already available on mobile, offers a personalised view of a user’s watchlist, history, and in-progress titles, with the aim of creating a more cohesive viewing experience across devices.

Title presentation has also been rethought. Instead of clicking through multiple layers, users hovering over a show or film will now see expanded cards offering a short synopsis, genre, cast details, and visibility cues like 'Top 10 in Your Country' or 'Emmy Winner'. The approach is designed to support faster decision-making and reduce the friction that often comes with browsing an endless catalogue.

Behind the scenes, Netflix’s recommendation engine is also being tuned. Dubbed 'responsive recommendations', the system now shifts more dynamically based on what users have recently watched. If a user has spent the evening watching crime thrillers or romantic dramas, the algorithm will temporarily adjust to surface-similar content without waiting for longer-term viewing trends to take shape.

While Netflix has framed these updates as part of a broader effort to make the experience more intuitive, early user feedback has been mixed. Some testers have noted via Reddit that the larger content tiles reduce the number of visible options on screen, potentially slowing down browsing. Others have flagged the removal of familiar categories, such as ‘New & Popular’, and the lack of flexibility to revert to the old layout.

The timing of the redesign is no accident. As the platform pushes into new formats—ranging from live sports and interactive programming to mobile games—the need for a more adaptable interface has become more pressing. The new layout appears designed to support this expansion without requiring users to rethink how they interact with the platform.

Changes aren’t limited to TV. On mobile, Netflix is testing a vertical, TikTok-style feed of trailers and clips, as well as an AI-powered natural language search on iOS. These features intend to reflect growing demand for more intuitive content discovery tools, particularly among mobile-first viewers in markets like Southeast Asia.

For brand marketers and content strategists, the interface shift could have implications for visibility, especially as Netflix’s ad-supported tier matures and branded integrations evolve. With fewer titles visible per screen and more algorithmically driven placements, surfacing content in front of the right audience may require new thinking around metadata, genre alignment, and placement strategy.