Streaming platform ZEE5 has introduced a comprehensive overhaul of its mobile and Connected TV interfaces, integrating artificial intelligence to drive content discovery, user personalisation, and customer service.
Alongside the user experience redesign, the service has segmented its catalog into five targeted hubs and significantly expanded its library with a slate of Hollywood acquisitions and an upgraded free-tier offering.
Interface Redesign and Technical Architecture
The updated platform architecture addresses multi-device viewing habits, enabling smoother transitions between mobile devices and large-screen Connected TV setups. Built around user feedback, market focus groups, and structured testing across engineering and quality assurance teams, the interface emphasizes scannability and lower navigation friction.
Key platform and technical updates include:
- Categorized Content Hubs: The catalog is now segmented into five primary sections: Premium Entertainment, Free 5, KidZ, TV, and Sports.
- AI-Led Discovery and Personalisation: Machine learning algorithms curate user interfaces based on individual viewing habits and content preferences.
- AI Customer Support: An automated assistant handles account management, subscription workflows, playback troubleshooting, and device setup.
- Privacy Measures: Enhanced data privacy frameworks have been implemented to align with evolving digital standards.
English Content Slate and Strategic Partnerships
Complementing its recent broadcast rights acquisitions for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ and 2030, alongside multi-language regional content expansions across seven Indian languages, ZEE5 has broadened its English-language lineup through partnerships with PVR INOX Pictures and Lionsgate Play.
The digital premiere lineup features several high-profile Hollywood titles, including:
- Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller
- Anxious People, featuring Angelina Jolie and Jason Segel
- The Invite, starring Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton, and Olivia Wilde
- The Wizard of the Kremlin, featuring Jude Law
- How to Make a Killing, starring Glen Powell and Margaret Qualley
- Normal, featuring Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, and Lena Headey
- Babies, starring Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick
- Tony, starring Dominic Sessa
Restructuring of the Free Tier (‘Free 5’)
ZEE5 has also repositioned its ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) model under the Free 5 brand. Operating without a subscription requirement, the hub aggregates movies, original series, news, creator content, micro-dramas, anime, and localized Korean and Chinese dramas.
The refreshed layout provides brand partners and advertisers with targeted inventory segments across distinct audience demographics and regional languages.
Tejkarran Singh Bajaj, Business Head – Zee 5 India and AI & Innovation said:
The next phase of Zee 5 is about making entertainment easier to discover, more relevant and more rewarding. We have reimagined the product experience across mobile and Connected TV, with smarter personalisation, deeper use of AI and more intuitive discovery. In addition to the platform’s existing offering of premium movies and series across seven languages, rich television content, sports, kids’ entertainment, Live TV and news, we are now expanding the depth of content with an English slate bringing global cinema to Indian audiences, alongside a revamped Free 5 with more languages, genres and the creator ecosystem. For advertisers, this breadth creates a richer canvas to connect with distinct audience cohorts across languages, content genres and viewing occasions. Together, our product and content evolution gives audiences more choice, more depth and a simpler way to find what they love.
Pramod Prakash, Chief Technology Officer, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., said:
A streaming platform is experienced through hundreds of small interactions, and each of those interactions shapes how audiences feel about the service. Our focus was therefore to look beyond individual features and rethink the experience as a whole, identifying where the journey could feel more natural, more responsive and less demanding for the user. At the heart of this is an intuitive and easy-to-use app that gives every generation in the family simple access to the entertainment they love. The revamp reflects a simple product philosophy: technology should quietly remove friction and allow the entertainment to take centre stage. As viewing becomes increasingly distributed across devices, formats and contexts, we are building Zee 5 to be more adaptive, dependable and ready for the way audiences will consume entertainment next.