French media group Canal+ on Wednesday unveiled multi-year agreements with Google Cloud and OpenAI to integrate generative AI into its production workflows and streaming service.
The company, which last year acquired South Africa’s MultiChoice Group, the owner of DStv, is seeking to rival Netflix’s recommendation algorithms and pursue a goal of reaching 100 million subscribers by 2030.
The partnerships are “very complementary”, CEO Maxime Sadda said in an interview, with Google focused on data extraction and OpenAI powering search recommendation to improve subscriber experience.
The combined technologies will index Canal+’s entire content library to improve personalised recommendations on Canal+.
Canal+ will also provide Google’s video generative AI, Veo 3, to production teams, allowing creators to pre-visualise scenes before shooting or recreate historical moments from archival photographs.
Canal+ will roll out an updated system that goes beyond traditional keyword searches starting June 2026. Subscribers make natural-language requests and receive tailored propositions suggested by the AI.
Africa roll-out
“We’re going to work on data,” Saada said, describing how the models provided by Google help identify all elements and describe scenes in a movie or a show, which can then be used with OpenAI to enhance both search and recommendation engines.
The deployment will cover European and African markets where the Canal+ app is available, beginning in June 2026.
Read: Canal+ unveils big plan to stem DStv’s decline
Canal+ said intellectual property protections are built into the partnerships, with its rights and asset ownership “deeply protected” within Google Cloud’s secure environment. — Leo Marchandon, (c) 2026 Reuters
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