Netflix is “simplifying” its user interface with a more “intuitive” design—all the evidence we need to suggest the current recommendations model is creaking under its own weight.
To us, this smells like a smokescreen to facilitate Netflix’s evolving cost-optimized content strategy, by quietly trimming licensed and long-tail content in favor of fat-tail crowd-pleasers—namely Netflix Originals and high-profile Hollywood buys.
With the latest homepage refresh, Netflix claims new features will better reflect its expanding entertainment remit—gaming, live events, and interactive experiences—while creating a “clean and modern” UI that prioritizes easier discovery.
Buried beneath the slick update and new beta features like generative AI-powered search and TikTok-style vertical feed, Netflix’s changes to its recommender model are paving the way for a slimmed-down content offering—one better tailored to boost engagement around a more curated set of titles while also funneling users into non-traditional forms of Netflix entertainment.
Netflix has shown increasing signs of deprioritizing niche titles, despite long-standing claims that long-tail content drives retention. After peaking at around 11,000 assets in 2012, Netflix’s catalog nearly halved to 5,800 by 2020, before ticking back up to 7,000 in 2024—57% of which are now Netflix Originals, compared to a mere 0.09% when the first eight Originals launched in 2013.
Simplification is also a reflection of technical debt. Netflix has acknowledged that its recommendation architecture—spanning multiple independently trained machine learning models like “Continue Watching” and “Top Picks for You”—has become costly to maintain and inflexible to scale.
In response, Netflix has recently moved to a centralized architecture powered by a foundational model that shares learnings across its various recommendation rails, and integrates LLMs.
This consolidation allows Netflix to reduce redundancy while supporting more dynamic recommendation use cases, from generating real-time embeddings to tackling cold start and presentation bias problems.
The recommender revamp dovetails with a redefinition of what “better real-time recommendations” means. Netflix is positioning these as more “responsive to your moods and interests,” which is another way of saying it wants to surface the most clickable content in the moment, rather than exhaustively mapping historical tastes.
Generative AI is already being layered in, with Netflix testing an opt-in natural language search feature on iOS—where users can input phrases like “I want something funny and upbeat.” This could improve discovery for casual browsers but also shapes the UI into more of a push engine for curated content.
The thumbs-up system survives, but with a facelift. Meanwhile, vibrant call-outs like “Emmy Award Winner” and “We Think You’ll Love This” are being brought front and center—signals of a recommendation regime built more for Netflix’s priorities than the user’s library wanderlust.
Demographic shifts are also steering strategy. Gen Z is allergic to anything made pre-2000. Millennials rarely go pre-1960. The long-tail is culturally out of fashion, and Netflix is likely making peace with that.
The latest Black Mirror series even satirizes the recycling of old content, envisioning AI-injected reskins of vintage movies—turning forgotten films into modern hits with deepfake stars.
Netflix, of course, plays in a different arena from TikTok or Instagram, where social algorithms reward content recency above all. But Netflix has still been taking notes, with vertical feeds being tested and mood-based prompts borrowing from short-form culture—without the overhead of user-generated content moderation.
As pictured, a vertical feed will present featured clips from “Top Picks For You”. Users can then tap to watch the whole show or movie immediately, or add to their watch list, or share the title with friends.
This is a natural expansion from the mobile feature tested last year, which saw Netflix add the ability to clip scenes to share on social media.
The company revealed that 5 of the top 10 most-saved mobile moments came from Squid Game, which were shared all over social media.
Netflix highlights that it will invest more in this area in the coming months.
Ultimately, Netflix’s simplified homepage is the front-end of a deeper recalibration in content economics and recommendation science. As always, Netflix insists, “The new TV experience is still the one you know and love—just better.”
We’ll need some hard data before we ever take the words “just better” as gospel.