Disney+ is turning into TikTok. You can’t avoid this new feature in the application

It seems that TikTok has so successfully rebuilt our habits that in 2026 even a premium application for watching full-length films and series must have its own vertical video layout. Instead of traditional library browsing, viewers are served a stream of short, random clips. Everything in the well-known TikTok convention.

How does it work in practice in the Disney+ app? After clicking the new Verts icon in the navigation bar, the user is taken to an interface optimized for vertical scrolling. There you will find scenes and fragments of films or series as well as their trailers from Disney+, Hulu and ESPN. If a given fragment catches our attention, we can immediately go to play the full material (just turn the phone to the wide layout) or add it to our list with one click. A specially designed, advanced recommendation algorithm is responsible for what exactly we see on the screen.

This solution has been tested in the ESPN app since August last year, where it reportedly increased user engagement. The Verts tab is currently available to Disney+ subscribers in the United States on Android and iOS. It is not known when users in other countries will see the new feature.

However, Disney representatives warn that this is only the beginning and “the first scene of the first episode.” The tool is to be intensively developed, and in the future the platform does not rule out adding vertical materials to the main screen in yet another format – perhaps short productions created specifically in this format (and not clips of large productions).