Tubi is one of the best free streaming services we've tested, with over 250,000 free movies and TV episodes. If you're looking for something to watch, it's tough to sort through that.

But Tubi may just make finding something to watch a whole lot easier. The free streaming service just launched a brand new feature called Tubi Scenes.

The way it works is that it provides a feed of movie and show clips, named “scenes,” which can be used to watch full-length movies and episodes. This feature is part of what Tubi's Chief Product and Technology Officer Mike Vidgori calls “effortless entertainment,” and it's all done using AI and cell phones.

Ready to check out? This is how Tubi Scenes works.

As I mentioned earlier, this is an AI-based feature. However, it is not a perfect AI.

Scenes is a great way to get started with its ...... Starting behind the scenes, Tubi uses AI and machine learning to examine the hundreds of thousands of hours of free movies and shows on the platform and create a pool of AI-generated clips from those movies and shows. Once this pool is created, Tubi then uses humans to curate the Scenes that appear in your Scenes feed.

Currently, Tubi has “tens of thousands” of clips, but states that the catalog is “growing.”

In effect, for you, the user, that doesn't matter. You don't care about that at all. However, if you open the Tubi app on your iOS or Android device, you will notice an icon on the bottom navigation bar that says “Scenes.”

Tapping this icon will start Scenes playing and a new user interface will pop up. In this UI, you can watch movies and shows on Scenes, “like” Scenes or save a Scene to My List. After saving a Scene to My List, you can queue My List on any of the 30+ devices available with Tubi and start watching episodes of the corresponding movie or show.

There are several things I like about Scenes and several reasons why Tubi launched such a feature; Bidgoli claims that the average person “takes 10 minutes to find something to watch.” If that figure is accurate, then providing a feature that reduces that time is a win for users on paper.

I also like the route Tubi has taken with regard to using AI in Scenes: using AI to create scenes increases productivity and the number of movies and shows that can be included in the feature. It also makes sense to use AI so that the more you use Scenes, the more personalized the recommendations.

However, I am glad that it is humans who curate what makes the cut and what doesn't. As someone who covered generative AI for Tom's Guide, I can easily imagine Scenes creating bad Scenes. If the feature is filled with bad Scenes, users will stop using it.

My concern about Scenes is whether users will start using them. I like the cross-platform feature on MyList, but I don't know if that's how people will actually watch TV.

If you are watching on TV, do you first pull out your phone and search Scenes? Or do they fiddle around with the TV app? And will people spend time mindlessly scrolling through the Tubi app to find something to watch later? Or will they stick to social media?

The answer to all of these questions could be yes, but I don't think so. I think it is more likely that users use Scenes on their mobile devices to watch movies and shows on those same mobile devices. However, given that many people currently watch on their cell phones and tablets, Scenes could still be a huge success for Tubi.