Canal+ taps Google's AI for video production, content recommendation

By Leo Marchandon

March 11 - French media group Canal+ CAN.L on Wednesday said it had struck a multi-year partnership with Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google Cloud to deploy generative artificial intelligence across its production operations and streaming platform.

With Netflix NFLX.O spending on AI-driven recommendation engines and Amazon AMZN.O embedding machine learning deep into Prime Video, CANAL+ is betting that Google's firepower can help it punch above its weight as it races toward a target of up to 100 million subscribers by 2030 after swallowing South Africa's MultiChoice.

• Canal+ will provide Google's video generative AI Veo 3 to production teams

• It says this will allow creators to pre-visualize scenes before shooting or recreate historical moments from a single archival photograph

• The tools will be made available to production companies working on films supported by Canal+

• Partnership includes intellectual property protections, with CANAL+ stating that its rights and asset ownership will be "deeply protected" within the secure technical environment provided by Google Cloud

• Canal+ will use Google's AI technology to index its entire content library and improve personalised recommendations on its Canal+ App

• Rollout will cover European and African markets where the App is available, with deployment set to begin in June 2026