How Apple TV Ranks Search Results From Two Keystrokes (RecSys 2026)
Summary
Search-as-you-type gives a ranker 1-3 characters of intent. Apple's production system gives every show two embeddings: a text encoder fine-tuned on co-engagement, and an ID embedding learned purely from co-watching. Your watch history becomes a user vector in both spaces and boosted trees fuse the similarities per keystroke: +2.99% NDCG@10 offline, confirmed in a three-week online A/B. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2607.13493
About this video
Search-as-you-type gives a ranker 1-3 characters of intent. Apple's production system gives every show two embeddings: a text encoder fine-tuned on co-engagement, and an ID embedding learned purely from co-watching. Your watch history becomes a user vector in both spaces and boosted trees fuse the similarities per keystroke: +2.99% NDCG@10 offline, confirmed in a three-week online A/B. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2607.13493