Roku just fired a shot across Amazon's bow in the streaming wars. The company's rolling out AI-powered voice features that let users ask conversational questions about movies and shows - directly challenging Amazon's Alexa Plus integration on Fire TV. Instead of just basic commands, Roku Voice can now handle queries like "How scary is The Shining?" or explain movie trivia, marking a major shift in how we'll interact with our TVs.
Roku isn't just updating its voice assistant - it's completely reimagining how we discover and understand entertainment content. The streaming platform's new AI-powered Roku Voice can now field conversational questions about movies, shows, and actors, transforming what used to be simple remote commands into natural dialogue.
The timing couldn't be more strategic. Amazon has been pushing its AI-powered Fire TV search since last year, recently upgrading it with Alexa Plus integration that helps users find specific scenes and learn about actors' backgrounds. Meanwhile, Netflix is piloting conversational search powered by OpenAI, creating a three-way AI arms race in the living room.
Roku's approach focuses on contextual understanding rather than just search. Users can ask "What kind of fish is Nemo?" and get text responses displayed on-screen along with relevant content links. It's the kind of functionality that turns your TV into something closer to a smart display, bridging the gap between passive viewing and active discovery.
But Roku isn't stopping at voice. The company's expanding Bluetooth headphone support to its Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus models, addressing one of the most requested features from cord-cutters who want private listening without waking the house. This puts Roku on par with premium streaming devices that have offered wireless audio for years.
The mobile app updates reveal Roku's broader strategy. New shortcuts for closed captions, sleep timers, and the "find my remote" feature suggest they're thinking about the entire viewing ecosystem, not just the main screen experience. The addition of like/dislike ratings and content sorting options shows Roku taking recommendation algorithms seriously - crucial as viewers increasingly rely on platforms to surface content from the overwhelming catalog choices.
