The ad-supported tier of Netflix is going to get way worse, starting some time in 2026. That’s when the streaming giant is promising to implement AI-generated ads and pause ad formats in the middle of watching shows and movies, according to a new report by Media Play News. It’s a privilege for which users will be paying $8 a month as Netflix continues ramping up its ad business.
“Either they have great technology, or they have great entertainment,” the company’s president of advertising Amy Reinhard said at its party for ad agencies this week. “Our superpower has always been the fact that we have both.” It’s not clear exactly what form the AI-generated slop will take and whether it will be catered to each individual viewer in real-time, but the Netflix exec sounded bullish on the strategy’s financial prospects.
“When you compare us to our competitors, attention starts higher and ends much higher,” Reinhard said. “And even more impressive, members pay as much attention to mid-roll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves.” How much is that attention worth to Netflix? About $10 a month since the cheapest plan without ads is $18. To put that in perspective, Reinhard said people on the ad-supported tier watch about 41 hours of Netflix a month, which would include roughly three hours of ads.
Starting sometime in 2026, however, at least some of those ads will be AI-generated and interrupting the middle of your latest Squid Game or Stranger Things binge-session, rather than being just at the beginning before a show starts streaming. What an incredible waste of everyone’s time as as Netflix continues jacking up its prices and cracking down on password sharing.
Meanwhile, things that might actually be neat like in-app TikTok-style feeds of curated clips from content available on the platform are only just getting off the ground. Netflix Gaming also remains as confusing as ever, even if there are a couple of neat-sounding games coming down the road. I can only imagine what certain execs are saying behind closed doors about the prospect of using AI to create quick, interactive adaptations of whatever show is currently most popular on the app.
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