Peacock is making a clear bet on AI and mobile-first entertainment, with a mobile app redesign that resembles a mix of TikTok, a casual gaming hub, and a streaming service. The streamer is rolling out AI-powered vertical video experiences, vertical live NBA broadcasts, and mobile games designed to keep viewers entertained on their phones.
The centrepiece is a new feature called "Your Bravoverse," aimed at Bravo fans and pulling short-form clips from more than 5,000 hours of Bravo footage and stitching them into personalized playlists. The system uses computer vision to identify key storylines, and AI agents trained on Bravo fan behaviour help determine what viewers care about most, creating more than 600 billion possible viewing variations. The feature will debut in beta during NBA games this spring.
What makes this particularly novel is the guide: an AI-powered avatar of Andy Cohen that takes viewers through personalised playlists featuring iconic scenes, connected storylines, and behind-the-scenes moments, created with generative AI. It's a bold experiment in using AI faces to anchor entertainment experiences, and Bravo viewers may be the perfect test audience, as they are famously devoted, with the average Bravo viewer watching about 24 hours per month while some watch up to 75 episodes monthly.
The gaming ambition is equally aggressive. Peacock is launching casual games including Jeopardy! and one based on Law & Order. Two mystery games, Law & Order: Clue Hunter and Public Eye, come from AI gaming startup Wolf Games, with NBCUniversal announcing the partnership in October to build immersive games involving gathering clues and using an AI assistant to solve crimes.
On the sports side, live NBA broadcasts will be reformatted to fit phone screens this spring, marking the first time a streaming platform is offering a full live broadcast in vertical mode. The algorithm tracks where the basketball is, crops the video in real-time, then ports it over so viewers can watch on their phone without rotating, taking vertical video to the next level.
Yet the push forward masks a business struggling to find balance. While Peacock recently added subscribers and has grown to 44 million, the platform is still operating at a loss, with the streamer reporting a $552 million loss in Q4 2025. The service continues to lag behind top-tier streaming rivals. The ambitious new features represent a strategic admission: traditional streaming has hit a wall. As NBCUniversal's Matt Strauss explained, most streaming services were designed for horizontal viewing and built for television, so Peacock is adding vertical video and clips to meet how people actually use their phones.
This mirrors a broader shift across the industry. Peacock is not alone in exploring short-form video, with Disney+ launching its own mobile short-form feed on Thursday and Netflix planning to expand short-form features to promote new original video podcasts. The question is whether these features can meaningfully affect retention and engagement, or whether they represent expensive distraction from the core problem: Peacock doesn't have enough must-watch content to compete with Netflix, and TikTok and YouTube already own the vertical video space.
This summer, Peacock plans to expand vertical video by giving it its own dedicated section in the app, a move clearly inspired by TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, as streaming platforms increasingly compete with social media for viewers' attention. The gamble is whether fandom can be monetised through games and micro-content, or whether viewers will simply swipe past Peacock's vertical feed and straight to the apps designed from the ground up for that experience.