Amazon has added Video Recaps to Prime Video, a new tool that creates short summary videos of entire seasons using real scenes, character audio, and music. These videos help viewers remember the story before they start a new season. The feature is launching in beta and will first appear on selected titles such as Fallout, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and Upload.
Prime Video already offers X-Ray Recaps, a written catch-up feature inside the streaming platform. The new update shifts the same purpose into video form, giving users a visual refresher instead of short text summaries. Where the written tool provides quick reading, the video version shows moments from past seasons, making it easier to recall plot points, character arcs, and major events without rewatching old episodes.
Amazon is presenting Video Recaps as a practical viewing tool. It shortens the time needed to remember earlier storylines in long-running or complex shows. Viewers who stopped watching for months no longer need to search for episode histories online or skim blogs to remember what happened. The feature simply plays a short recap with footage from the show, offering a clear revisit of events before the new season starts.
The company has not shared when the feature will expand beyond the beta stage, nor whether it will include licensed content from other studios. For now, it will appear only on Amazon Originals, because Amazon owns the footage needed to generate the recap videos. There is no extra subscription cost, and the update will automatically appear on supported titles once rolled out.
A More Direct Way to Refresh a Story
Before this update, most viewers relied on reading summaries, rewatching older episodes, or searching online for information about past seasons. Those methods required extra time or depended on outside sources that varied in depth and accuracy. With Video Recaps, Prime Video keeps the catch-up process within the app, offering a direct format that plays like a short highlight clip rather than a written list.
Video Recaps are especially useful for shows with multiple characters and long storylines. When audiences follow a series over several years, remembering specific turning points can be difficult, especially if viewers take long breaks between seasons. A short visual recap can quickly cover key developments without asking viewers to revisit hours of content.
Unlike promotional trailers, these videos are not created to market the show or generate hype. They serve a practical need for returning viewers, and they are positioned as a tool that saves time, improves continuity, and encourages audiences to resume a series instead of abandoning it due to lack of clarity or memory.
As the beta progresses, more shows are expected to receive Video Recaps based on usage patterns and viewer feedback.
Streaming Rivals Build Their Own Viewer Tools
Major streaming platforms are also building features that make watching easier without changing how audiences consume full seasons. YouTube TV offers Key Plays, a tool that lets viewers catch up on live sports after joining late. It shows important match moments so users do not need to see the entire game. Key Plays earned recognition when YouTube TV received a Technical Emmy for its improvements in sports viewing.
Max (formerly HBO Max) is using automated assistance to generate preview clips for marketing. Its system identifies attention-grabbing scenes from shows and movies, which are later refined by editors to create teasers and trailers. This speeds up promotional work and reduces manual scanning of footage.
Netflix is using similar tools for production tasks. In recent projects, the platform applied these tools to build large destruction scenes, design set ideas during pre-production, and adjust character aging effects in certain films. While Netflix focuses on behind-the-scenes work rather than viewer recaps, it shows how platforms are using new forms of automation to manage time-consuming tasks.
Across streaming services, the goal is the same: make content easier to access, understand, or produce without requiring long manual effort. Amazon’s Video Recaps take that idea directly to the viewer, offering support inside the app instead of asking users to find recaps elsewhere.
