Before ChatGPT, Netflix Had Max — The Forgotten AI That Tried to Fix Your Choice Paralysis in 2013

Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. Give up and rewatch The Office. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone — and you are also not the first generation of Netflix subscribers to suffer from choice paralysis. Back in 2013, Netflix actually tried to solve this problem with something remarkably ahead of its time. They called it Max. Not HBO Max. Just Max.

What Was Netflix’s Max?

How Max Actually Worked?

If you were streaming on a PlayStation 3 back in 2013, you might remember an incredibly quirky feature popping up on your screen. Part virtual assistant, part game-show host, Max was an attempt to make deciding what to watch feel like less of a chore and more of an event.

Rather than just throwing rows of thumbnails at you, Max engaged you in a conversation — asking questions about your mood, tastes, and preferences before recommending something to watch. It was interactive, personality-driven, and genuinely fun in a way that felt unlike anything else on a streaming platform at the time.

According to available write-ups, it was developed by Jackbox Games — a studio that has since teamed up with Netflix’s games division to bring a special collection of their Jackbox Party Pack titles to subscribers. The creative DNA was clear: Max was built to entertain, not just inform.

Why Max Matters Now?

The irony is striking. Netflix has tried an AI assistant of sorts before — it used to have a feature called Max all the way back in 2014, which would revolve around you playing a game to find your next watch. It didn’t use a large language model like OpenAI has pioneered, but it was impressive all the same. What’s on Netflix

Fast forward to 2026 and Netflix is now partnering with OpenAI to build a full generative AI-powered search — a conversational discovery tool that lets you type things like “scary but not too scary, and a little funny” to find something to watch. Max was the rough, quirky prototype of exactly that vision, over a decade before the technology existed to do it properly.

What Came After Max?

Netflix has never stopped trying to solve the discovery problem. Max’s spiritual successors can be seen in features like the short-lived “Surprise Me” (or Play Something) shuffle button, which Netflix introduced in 2021 and quietly discontinued in early 2023. The latest iteration is their vertical video feed, which shows previews of popular clips from various Netflix shows and movies in the hope you jump in. What’s on Netflix

Each of these features tells the same story: Netflix knows that the gap between opening the app and pressing play is a problem — and they have been trying to close it ever since Max first appeared on a PS3 in 2013. Now, with OpenAI in the mix, they may finally have the tools to do it right.

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