Kiwi expat Ben Polkinghorne launches moveme.tv AI startup to solve global entertainment problem

Kiwi expat and former award-winning creative at Colenso BBDO, W+K and AMV BBDO London Ben Polkinghorne has founded a new AI start-up called www.moveme.tv. The London tech start-up moveme.tv today launches a free platform that combines AI and neuroscience with a unique emotion-led approach to streaming categorisation. This enables users to discover the perfect movie to watch by describing their desired emotional state using emotive words – or emojis. The platform promises to speed up the search process, bringing people closer to content they’ll love in under two minutes in a simple, playful way.

With the global competition for subscribers, the amount of available video content has jumped 18% in the last three years. Paradoxically, this makes finding something good to watch harder. In December 2022, an annual global study of 6,000 streaming consumers by Accenture found a staggering 72% get frustrated trying to find something to watch, up 9% year on year. More than one-quarter (26%) say it can take them more than 10 minutes to choose something, up 53% year on year. And more than one-third (35%) unsubscribed from at least one of the top five streaming video-on-demand services in the last 12 months.

Existing streaming platforms typically rely on two main recommendation systems – content based and collaborative filtering. Both date back to the 1990s. What they fail to take into account is that emotions influence nearly every decision people make. What people watch is no exception. It largely depends on their current mood and how they want to feel. That’s why we enjoy rewatching movies: we know how they’ll make us feel.

moveme.tv addresses this head-on. Its proprietary AI system can accurately match film content with a specific emotional journey, enabling users to rapidly discover the content that’s relevant for them, right now.

For the first time, anyone will be able to discover movies through the power of emotions. Users select or input their desired mood using any emotive words or emojis, such as “Warm fuzzies”, “🤘😎🤘” or “Awe 🪐”. Recommendations can then be further filtered based on ratings, release date, what can be watched for free, or what can be watched with any existing paid streaming subscription.

Says Ben Polkinghorne, founder and CEO of moveme.tv: “Watching movies is an emotional experience. Discovering them should be too. Existing streaming platforms are infuriating their customers with arguably ancient, flawed and unsophisticated recommendations, that often fail to connect people to the content they crave.”

Funded by a grant from Innovate UK, the start-up undertook research with leading neuroscientists Dr. Kathrin Kadosh and Dr. Philip Dean at the University of Surrey. The company was then able to develop a pioneering emotion-led algorithm that has now analysed 676,906 films.

Says Dr. Dean: “By measuring brain activity as people watch movies, we begin to understand the neural signatures of emotional processing. This raw emotional data can then feed an algorithm to automatically predict how a movie will make someone feel.”

moveme.tv’s free platform also promises greater visibility and discovery of exciting content from independent and foreign filmmakers that often don’t surface on traditional platforms, where recommendations tend to favour popular hits. In this way, moveme.tv moves beyond the limitations of mainstream streaming platforms and will enable exciting opportunities for independent filmmakers and content creators.

moveme.tv is free to users and has plans to engage with content platforms to licence its patent-pending technology while continuing to develop its public service.

Says Polkinghorne: “By tapping into our emotions, stimulating our senses, and creating a deep emotional bond with the characters and storylines, movies can significantly impact our moods. So, by simplifying how we find movies, we’re also effortlessly helping people to change their mood – as, when and how they want to.”

According to Polkinghorne, movies are just the start: “We believe changing your mood changes everything. Our vision is to transform moods at the push of a button”.

moveme.tv launches today in 118 countries, with a catalogue spanning all 516 streaming services.

To quickly find a movie that will move you, visit www.moveme.tv.