The average household manages 6.9 streaming apps and spends 20% of their screen time just searching for what to watch — approximately 92 clicks to find a show across 6 apps. The space between apps when you switch is completely unmonetized — $0 in revenue for anyone.

AURA solves navigation fatigue. One AI-built grid. Every platform. Zero searching. And it monetizes the one moment in media nobody else owns.

Yes — AURA is completely free to users, forever. You do not pay for the app, the grid building, or the AI Architect.

AURA earns revenue through three invisible streams: Transition Gap ads (you see these between shows), affiliate bounties (when AURA refers you to a new subscription), and anonymized data intelligence sold to studios and analysts. None of these cost you anything.

Yes. AURA does not replace your streaming subscriptions — it orchestrates them. You continue paying Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc. directly. AURA uses your existing access to build a grid across all of them.

If AURA recommends a show on a platform you don't subscribe to, it will offer a Subscribe button. If you sign up through AURA, you pay the same price but AURA earns an affiliate referral fee.

Your AURA account is what powers personalization. It stores:

• Your genre preferences and viewing patterns
• Which streaming platforms you've linked (access tokens, not passwords)
• Your household demographic data (age range, household type, zip code) for Transition Gap ad targeting
• Your viewing profiles for each household member
• Your Grid history so AURA learns from your picks, skips, and reactions

Without an account, AURA cannot build a personalized grid or remember your preferences between sessions. This data is what makes AURA's Transition Gap ads valuable to advertisers — and is why the app is free to you.

Viewer profiles work exactly like Netflix or Disney+ profiles. Each person in your household gets their own profile with:

• Their own genre preferences and content history
• Their own Grid — different content from the same linked platforms
• Their own demographic segment for ad targeting (Dad gets truck ads, Teen gets tech ads, etc.)
• Age-appropriate content filtering (Kids profile)

AURA automatically detects which profile is likely active based on viewing time (7PM on Friday = Couple profile), content type, and manual selection. You can always manually switch profiles from the header.

• Name and email — for your account
• Zip code — for local ad targeting and local TV recommendations
• Age range — for demographic ad segments (never your exact birthdate)
• Household type — solo, couple, family with kids, roommates
• Genre preferences — what you love to watch

All data is collected and stored by AURA directly — never from your streaming services. AURA never asks for, stores, or has access to your streaming service account information beyond OAuth access tokens.

In Step 4 (The Vault), tap any streaming service tile. For subscription services (Netflix, Amazon, etc.), AURA shows an OAuth authorization flow:

For free services (YouTube, Tubi, Pluto TV, local TV apps), no OAuth is needed — just tap to link.

AURA requests only the minimum necessary permissions:

• content:read — Know what content your subscription includes
• playback:control — Issue deep-link play commands to the app

AURA does not request: your watch history from the platform, your payment information, your profile data from the platform, or any data that lives on their servers. AURA passively monitors app foreground/background state on your device — this is standard mobile OS functionality, equivalent to your phone knowing which app is open.

Yes. Tap any linked service in the Vault to unlink it. AURA immediately deletes the access token from your device and removes that platform from future Grids. You can also revoke AURA's access directly in each streaming service's account settings under "Connected Apps."

AURA's AI Architect runs in five steps every time you build or refresh a Grid:

• Step 1 — Vault scan: Identifies all content available across your linked platforms
• Step 2 — Profile match: Loads your active profile's genre preferences, viewing history, and reactions
• Step 3 — Metadata fetch: Pulls title, genre, runtime, rating, cast from TMDB and Gracenote/Xperi
• Step 4 — Sequence optimization: Arranges shows for maximum enjoyment — right pacing, right mood arc, right total runtime for your evening
• Step 5 — Transition Gap calibration: Inserts ad slots between platform switches and matches ad categories to your demographic profile

Channel tabs let you switch your Grid to a specific content vertical. Your My Grid tab is your personalized AI-built sequence. The other channels are curated lineups within that category:

• 📺 Shows — Current prestige series and bingeable episodics
• 🎬 Movies — Feature films sequenced for a movie night
• 📰 News — Trusted news sources from multiple platforms in one feed
• ⚽ Sports — Highlights, live games, and sports content
• 🎙️ Docs — Documentaries, true crime, and long-form journalism
• 📡 Local TV — Your San Antonio broadcast stations, free, no subscription

AURA learns from which channels you visit, how long you stay, and what you react to — continuously improving your My Grid recommendations.

AURA learns from three feedback signals:

• Explicit reactions — 🔥 (love it), 🤯 (mind blown), 🍿 (enjoying it), 😴 (boring/skip)
• Implicit behavior — Did you skip a recommended show? Did you watch all the way through? Did you switch channels mid-Grid?
• Active picks — Which shows did you manually select vs. which did AURA auto-advance?

Every signal updates your taste profile. Over 7–10 sessions, AURA's recommendations become significantly more accurate to your actual preferences vs. your stated genre preferences.

AURA uses deep-links — URL schemes that open a specific app to a specific piece of content, exactly like tapping a link that opens Instagram to a specific post. When you tap ▶ Watch, AURA issues the appropriate deep-link:

The OTT app handles all playback, buffering, subtitles, audio tracks, and controls. AURA does not touch the video stream at any point.

When Show 1 ends on Netflix, there is a 3–5 second gap between the Netflix app returning to background and the Amazon app opening for Show 2. This moment — the Transition Gap — has never been monetized by any company in media history.

AURA's overlay layer sits permanently above both apps. When it detects the switch, it immediately fires a 15-second, full-screen, non-skippable ad before issuing the deep-link to the next show. The full sequence:

AURA uses three layers of targeting — all from AURA's own first-party data, never from the streaming services:

• Demographic: Age range, household type, zip code (from AURA account signup)
• Contextual: What genre just finished? (Action movie = high-energy state = perfect for automotive, energy drinks, sports)
• Behavioral: Time of day, day of week, reaction history

Example: A user just finished a thriller on Netflix at 9PM on a Friday in zip 78220. AURA serves: "Your heart is racing. Keep the adrenaline going — new 2026 Raptor. Northside Ford San Antonio."

This is called a Mood-Match Interstitial — the ad matches the emotional state the content just created.

For comparison: YouTube pre-roll averages $10–$30 CPM. Transition Gap ads command a premium because they are (1) non-skippable, (2) mood-matched, (3) a captive audience between content items, and (4) the only ad inventory of its kind.

Never. AURA has an explicit non-interference rule: AURA only fills switching gaps — the dead space between apps. AURA never replaces, overlays, or interferes with ads running inside Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, or any other platform. This is both legally and ethically non-negotiable. Interfering with platform ads would be tortious interference and violate every OTT service agreement.

AURA's legal position is as a Standard User-Agent — a sophisticated remote control that manages app-switching on behalf of the user. It does not scrape, record, or alter any content from the OTT services.

Local TV stations are included in your 📡 Local TV channel tab. AURA detects your zip code (you provided it on signup) and surfaces your relevant local stations.

When you tap a local station, AURA issues a deep-link to that station's free app (e.g., ksat://live). The station's native app handles the live stream. When you return to AURA, the Transition Gap fires and AURA continues to your next queued item.

Local TV is included in any Grid at no cost. These apps are free and do not require an AURA-linked subscription. AURA treats local news exactly like any other platform — just another deep-link in the sequence.

Never, under any circumstance. AURA uses OAuth 2.1 + PKCE — the same standard used by "Sign in with Google." You log into each streaming service on their own website. They send AURA an authorization code. AURA exchanges that code (using a PKCE verifier that never leaves your device) for an access token. Your password is never in the equation.

The access token is encrypted with AES-256 using a key that only exists on your device — stored in the device's Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). Even if someone breached AURA's servers, they would find only locked boxes with no keys.

AURA collects only its own first-party data — none from the OTT services:

• App foreground/background state — Which app is open and when (system-level, no content access)
• Transition timestamps — When you switched from App A to App B
• Active Grid time — How long AURA's overlay was active
• Reaction data — Your 🔥🤯🍿😴 reactions to content
• Grid picks and skips — Which AI recommendations you accepted or ignored

AURA never requests watch history from Netflix or Amazon. AURA passively calculates engagement time from "app opened at 8:00PM, returned at 8:52PM = 52 min engagement" — processing that happens entirely on your device.

AURA is positioned legally as a Standard User-Agent — a sophisticated remote control acting on behalf of the user. Three key legal principles protect AURA:

• User Agency: The user explicitly authorizes AURA to manage their session. AURA's Consent Vault maintains a cryptographically signed log proving user authorization.
• No Scraping: AURA never requests data from OTT servers. It only observes device-level app state.
• Non-Interference: AURA only fills gaps between apps. It never replaces, alters, or interrupts content or ads within any streaming service.

AURA is compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and VPPA. All ad reporting uses anonymized cohorts of 50+ users minimum — never individual tracking.

• Identity: OAuth 2.1 + PKCE · JWT tokens · AES-256 device-side encryption
• Deep-linking: Deferred deep-linking via Branch.io · Platform-specific URI schemes
• Ad insertion: SSAI (Server-Side Ad Insertion) for zero-stall loading · VAST/VMAP compatible · Wide Orbit integration path
• Metadata: TMDB API · Gracenote/Xperi Data Cloud · Rovi for OTT entitlement data
• AI: Claude (Anthropic) via API for Grid building · Fine-tuned recommendation models in V2
• TV: WebAssembly thin client for Smart TV browsers · tvOS / Android TV system overlays
• Analytics: First-party event pipeline · Anonymized cohort reporting · Reaction Heat Map

AURA uses passive observation — the "Black Box Rule." AURA controls the lid of the box but never looks inside:

AURA never requests what position in the show the user is at, never requests Netflix's playback state, and never interacts with the OTT app's internal APIs. It only observes which app has foreground status.

Server-Side Ad Insertion stitches the Transition Gap ad directly into a brief video segment that AURA plays during the switching moment. The sequence:

Ad targeting call is made to the VAST endpoint (Wide Orbit / Google Ad Manager / direct) approximately 30 seconds before the predicted transition — calculated from the show's runtime metadata.

The 90-day Texas Pilot requires a CTO with mastery of:

• OAuth 2.1, PKCE, and JWT — for secure account linking
• Android TV System Overlays / tvOS Top Shelf APIs — for the persistent AURA overlay
• SSAI implementation — Server-Side Ad Insertion, zero-latency interstitial delivery
• Deferred deep-linking (Branch.io or equivalent)
• OTT/CTV deep-link expertise — Roku, Android TV (Tizen), tvOS, mobile
• Serverless architecture — to maintain <$0.05 infrastructure cost per user

6-month prototype budget: $246,200. Target: stable demo running on Sony Bravia hardware by Month 6. ← Back to App