Disney+ just launched Verts, its new short-form vertical video feed, and it's already turning heads in the streaming world. Rolling out to U.S. users on the Disney+ mobile app starting March 12, 2026, Verts lets subscribers swipe through clips and moments from their favorite movies and shows — all powered by a personalized recommendation algorithm. If you've ever lost 30 minutes on a short-video app without meaning to, Disney is betting you'll do the same thing on its platform.
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| Credit: Disney |
What Is the Disney+ Verts Feed?
Verts is Disney+'s answer to the short-form video revolution. Inspired by the success of vertical video feeds on popular social platforms, the feature surfaces quick clips, memorable scenes, and highlight moments from Disney+'s massive content library — which spans more than 100 years of storytelling.
The feed lives directly inside the Disney+ mobile app, accessible through a new icon in the app's navigation bar. Users simply swipe up to move through videos, much like scrolling a social media feed. It's a deliberately familiar interaction pattern, designed to feel natural to anyone who's already hooked on short-form content on their phone.
What makes Verts different from just watching clips elsewhere is the destination it leads to. Every piece of content in the feed is linked directly back to the full show or movie on Disney+. One swipe can take you from a 30-second clip straight into a complete series, instantly.
How Does the Disney+ Verts Feature Work?
The experience is built for speed and discovery. As you scroll through Verts, you'll see scenes and moments curated from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and more. The feed is not random — it's driven by a recommendation engine that Disney says is personalized to each individual user.
If something catches your eye, you have two options: add the show or movie to your watchlist for later, or jump directly into watching it right then. There's no friction, no searching, no navigating through menus. Disney designed the flow to move users from discovery to viewing in as few taps as possible.
The company first announced Verts in January 2026, after conducting early testing in August on both its streaming platform and its sports platform. Those tests reportedly showed that Verts drove meaningful additional engagement — a result Disney attributes directly to its algorithm's ability to surface the right content at the right time.
Why Disney Is Going All-In on Short-Form Video
The strategy here is not subtle. Short-form video has reshaped how people consume content, especially on mobile. Younger audiences in particular have been conditioned to discover everything — music, news, products, entertainment — through vertical swipe-based feeds. Disney+ needs to meet those viewers where they already are.
Streaming platforms have long struggled with a core problem: subscribers pay for a service but then don't know what to watch. The browse experience on most streaming apps is clunky, overwhelming, or both. Verts is designed to solve that specific pain point by replacing passive browsing with active, engaging discovery.
Disney put it plainly in an official blog post: "Verts offers a fun, fast way to explore that catalog right from the moment users open the app." The company is not just adding a feature — it's rethinking the front door of its app entirely.
The Algorithm Behind Disney+ Verts
Not all short-form feeds are created equal, and Disney knows it. The viral success of vertical video platforms isn't just about the format — it's about the precision of the recommendation engine underneath it. Disney's significant investment in its own algorithm for Verts signals that the company understands this deeply.
The Verts recommendation engine is designed to learn from your behavior inside the app. What you watch, what you skip, what you add to your list — all of it informs what shows up in your feed next. Over time, your Verts experience should feel less like a generic highlight reel and more like a curated preview of exactly the kind of content you love.
This personalization layer is what separates Verts from simply having a "clips" tab. Disney is building an engagement loop — the more you interact with Verts, the better it gets, and the more likely you are to find your next binge-watch through it rather than through a search bar.
Verts Is Just the Beginning
Disney isn't stopping at streaming clips. The company has signaled that Verts will eventually expand beyond its existing catalog content. Future plans include content from creators who are part of Disney's fandoms, along with new storytelling formats and personalized experiences that haven't been fully detailed yet.
That creator layer is significant. If Disney opens Verts to fan creators and franchise content makers, it begins to blur the line between a streaming service and a content ecosystem. Imagine Marvel fans, Star Wars enthusiasts, or Disney animation creators contributing to the very feed that introduces new subscribers to those universes. It's an ambitious vision — and one that could make Verts a genuine competitive differentiator in a crowded market.
For now, the rollout is focused on U.S. mobile users, with no official word yet on when it will expand internationally or arrive on connected TV devices.
What This Means for Disney+ Subscribers Right Now
If you're already a Disney+ subscriber, Verts gives you a genuinely new way to interact with a catalog you may have barely scratched. Long-running franchises, deep-cut classics, and new arrivals are all easier to stumble into when a well-timed clip surfaces in your feed at exactly the right moment.
If you've been on the fence about subscribing, Verts is part of a larger push by Disney to make the app stickier and more worth returning to daily — not just when a major new title drops. The company is betting that habitual, short-session engagement will translate into longer watch time and lower subscriber churn over the long run.
The launch of Verts marks a meaningful shift in how Disney+ thinks about its mobile experience. It's not just a place to stream anymore. It's trying to become a place you open every single day, even if just for a few minutes — and those few minutes are exactly what the streaming wars are being fought over right now.
