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Netflix tests language model as alternative to hand-built recommendation logic

Technology · en

Netflix tests language model as alternative to hand-built recommendation logic

The Decoder · Aug 22, 2026, 7:30 AM UTC

Netflix pitted its years-old recommendation engine against an in-house language model called GenRec and says it got better results. Instead of relying on thousands of hand-crafted features, GenRec converts viewing behavior into plain text. Netflix itself calls it "an early but promising step.…