HBO Max Built Its Shorts AI Pipeline In-House Rather Than Licensing

HBO Max launched "HBO Max Shorts," a vertical-video feed whose clip-selection AI was built entirely in-house. The ML system scans scene-level metadata across thousands of catalog hours, surfaces high-impact candidates, and hands them to human editors for final selection. Building rather than licensing gives HBO Max full control over scene scoring, editorial guardrails, and pipeline evolution as engagement data accumulates.