NBCUniversal is preparing the biggest mobile app overhaul yet for Peacock on iPhone, pushing vertical video and conversational features in hopes of boosting how much people watch. The company predicts the changes could drive usage up by about one hour per user each month.
What’s changing in the mobile experience
Among the headline updates: a strong focus on vertical video discovery. Peacock has introduced a Clips Feed that highlights short clips, franchise content like podcasts, and its Your Bravoverse feature—its personalized home for shows and content franchises. The idea is to allow users to more naturally move from watching brief vertical snippets to diving into full-length episodes.
Also in the pipeline is an AI-powered conversational search tool. Once live, it will let users request content by actor, franchise, or find series similar to ones they already know and like. Under the new design, live mobile video and adaptive viewing features will be more prominent, while browsing paths are being refined toward engagement through discovery.
Timeframe and expectations
The revamped Peacock app is currently in test mode. NBCUniversal plans a full rollout starting early next year. The company’s chair has stated that evolving the discovery experience with vertical video and more personalized browsing is expected to translate into users watching an extra hour per month.
These changes come at a moment when streaming platforms are increasingly leaning into short-form, discovery-led content to keep users engaged. Peacock’s revamp aims to bridge the gulf between bite-sized content and full episodes—mirroring trends seen on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and other video-first services.
What this means for users and the streaming landscape: Expect Peacock to feel more like a social video feed in its mobile form. As platforms race to retain viewers with recommendation-driven content design, vertical video serves as a familiar touchpoint. For viewers, the revamped browsing and search tools should reduce friction in finding new shows, possibly boosting how many series or genres they explore.
From Peacock’s perspective, adding an hour of watch time per user has financial implications—more ad impressions, higher retention, better differentiation in a crowded streaming field. How smoothly the test rollout goes and whether users actually engage with the new features will be the real tests.
