Amazon announced on Friday that it is adding a short-form video feed called Clips to the Prime Video app, starting with a limited roll out for select U.S. customers on iOS, Android and Fire tablets.
Clips will surface short clips of shows available on Prime Video designed to hook a viewer and send them to the full title. From any clip, users will be able to add the title to their watchlist, share the clip with a friend, or navigate to rent, buy or access the program through their subscription. The Clips carousel on the Prime Video mobile home page will expand into a full-screen vertical feed users can scroll through.
Brian Griffin put the product goal plainly: "Clips gives customers a whole new way to browse with short, personalized snippets tailored to their interests." Amazon first tested the short-form feed during the NBA season, showing highlights that users could scroll through as though they were watching TikToks, and the company said Clips now brings that same scrollable format to scripted and unscripted titles.
The timing matters because Amazon is pushing the feature out to mobile platforms where discoverability and impulse viewing are most powerful. Users who stumble on a clip can act immediately — add to a watchlist, share it, or go straight to a transaction — which compresses the path from discovery to viewing inside the Prime Video experience. The company said Clips will be available more broadly this summer after the initial limited roll out.
Clips arrives in a market where several rivals have already introduced similar discovery feeds. Netflix, Peacock, Tubi, Disney and others have recently rolled out short-form experiences intended to promote discovery inside their apps; Netflix’s short-form feed uses the same name, Clips. That crowded field makes product design and naming a competitive question as much as a technical one.
There is a clear tension between how Amazon built the test and how it markets the feature. The trial during the NBA season emphasized sports highlights and the quick-hit rhythm of a highlights feed. The launch language, by contrast, emphasizes clips of shows meant to entice viewers into full episodes and movies. The difference matters: highlight reels are curated for momentary excitement, while discovery clips for scripted content must convince a viewer to commit time to a program. Amazon must reconcile those behaviors inside one vertical feed.
Another practical tension is the shared name with Netflix’s short-form product. Two large streaming services using Clips to label similar vertical feeds could create confusion for marketers and audiences, particularly as studios and advertisers plan promotions around the format. Amazon’s approach — integrating immediate actions like adding to a watchlist or routing to a purchase — signals it wants Clips to be more than a scrolling tease, but it will only become a clear alternative to competitors if users find the feature reliably leads them to full viewing.
For users, the experience begins on mobile: navigate to the Clips carousel on the Prime Video home page, scroll down and the carousel will open into the full-screen feed. For Amazon, the near-term test will be whether Clips increases engagement with titles and drives conversions from a clip to a completed episode or transaction.
Clips is now live for select customers in the U.S. on iOS, Android and Fire tablets, and will reach more viewers this summer. If Amazon’s early test is any guide, the feed will mix sports-style highlights with scripted show moments and give users fast, actionable ways to move from a short clip to watching the full title — exactly the outcome Brian Griffin says the company is aiming for.
