Amazon is using AI to create video recaps of its streaming shows

Amazon Prime Video is testing another new generative AI-powered feature to help catch you up on a show you’ve been watching before starting a new season. Video Recaps uses AI to identify a show’s important plot points and create a short but “theatrical-quality” summary video that combines a selection of clips with music, dialogue, and narration.

The Video Recaps feature is being rolled out starting this week in beta on some English-language Prime Original series including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Upload, Bosch, The Rig, and Fallout (ahead of season two’s premiere on December 17th, 2025). Amazon says available recaps, including the text-based X-Ray Recaps it introduced a year ago, will be accessible through a recap button on the detail page when a “customer navigates to the next season of a supported series.” At launch they’re limited to “living room” Fire TV devices, but will expand to additional devices in the coming months.

The feature first “analyzes a season’s key plot points and character arcs to deeply understand the most pivotal moments that will resonate with viewers.” The AI then selects video clips and stitches them together with audio that includes sound effects and an “overarching AI-generated voiceover narration.” The length of the summaries will vary depending on the show, but in one photo shared in a blog post a season three recap of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan appears to be three minutes long.

The feature could be a useful way to refresh your memory for shows with especially long gaps between seasons. But does Amazon really need to use AI to create these summaries and open the door for inaccuracies that could cause confusion as you dive into a new season? Making Video Recaps available for every season of every show available on Prime could potentially justify the use of AI, but there’s fewer than 20 original drama series on the platform, and this rollout doesn’t even include all of them. Is it really that hard to get a human being to watch Citadel?