Keynote_ 2030 – The Rise of an AI Storytelling Civilization _ India AI Impact Summit

I think even in the panel before, there was a conversation around that. And I’m going to, over the next couple of slides, just take you through why we see this as a window. Last, about, say, 15 years has really been, you know, the streaming or the consumption era as we know it. It was predominantly, you know, passive consumption. About 20 years back, a bunch of companies like Netflix, etc., they got content from studios, from broadcasters. And prime time basically became my time. There was search, there was recommendations, etc. But format hasn’t changed. Because seven years later, when they did their first original show, they pretty much did what HBO was already doing. So we haven’t really seen much change in format for almost now 20 years.

Cut to now. We’re seeing the era of creation, and that had already commenced in the short video space. But the short video space. was what I call as an augmented space, 30, 60 second stories, augmented with music, augmented with background. You can call them stories, but they were not really complete as it were. I believe with the manner in which video generation models are developing, creation costs are collapsing, production cycles are now within hours, and AI will make India a creation civilization. Why do I say so? So when I look at, you know, what I term as the four pillars of an AI storytelling civilization, it starts with the fact that every creator is already a studio.

That is the reality now. I mean, you could literally be able to speak, and there is a component around, you know, an output that will happen as far as. Second, every language is global. We don’t need to. We have platforms where there is already auto translation, and this will continue to progress even more. Even the ones that you wear, I will be speaking in English, you will listen to me in French, you can reply back in Spanish and I’ll still comprehend. Our stories are becoming participatory. We’re beginning to see branching of narratives. I’ve been on forums like this for the last 15 years. Many a times spoken about terms like, which are more often than used, abused, which is convergence.

But today it is truly beginning to happen because we have conversational AI within characters. It’s already happened within gaming and it’s beginning to happen in this. And lastly, to me, culture is truly an opportunity of export in a very different way. I think from our stories, whether they’re mythological or folklore, we have an ability to extend these. And why do I say so? Because I think the technology stack… which is getting laid out, will make this a possibility. From production pipelines, we’re getting into what we call as creative intelligence systems. We already have generative engines. There is an autonomous sort of creative cycle and agents which are doing this from camera work to the kind of manner of lighting, etc.

We have the layer of narrative engines. You will have more interfaces for immersiveness, etc. And that leads to multi -path and components which we’ve seen parts of. But I think where we are heading is I come from a gaming world as well. We used to take two, three years, make a game, and then do seven years of live ops. I believe with categories like micro dramas, etc., for the first time, we are in for a live op scenario where I will make 10 shots. They’re ready, ingested. By the time you’re watching the fourth, you know, basis that feedback, basis that conversion sort of consumption pattern. your 11th and your 12th and your 13th episode is getting created.

So a vision which was typically one to million, that of a director, scriptwriter, etc., is now heading for a million to million kind of interaction and interface. So why 2030? I believe the camera will no longer be the primary tool of storytelling. Intelligence will. And why do I say that? You see, we are already seeing parts of this. You know, one of the first most significant, in fact, I believe in 20 years, micro dramas are the first truly digital format that have emerged. When we made films, a filmmaker could take four minutes, five minutes in setting up a character. When I did original shows, you know, which could be extending to four hours, I could take eight hours to show this person as an alcoholic, very elderly person, sort of, you know, whatever.

And by the seventh minute, you’re finding that he’s a genius as well. Here, in 15 seconds, they are unabashed, they don’t care, they will put, they’ll show you a face, it’s a billionaire playboy and there will be a little thing coming around and in one stroke, that’s the kind of, so it’s a format. And it is a format of narration which a generation who hasn’t seen things in horizontal is embracing at a pace which is unprecedented. We’re seeing that and I feel where we are heading is a world which I like to describe just from a visual point of view like a cube of sorts. Up till now, we’ve all consumed content as, you know, audio, video, game, live, extended reality.

We’re going to kind of move from one to the other seamlessly and that is why it is exciting. From multi platforms to stories which will no longer live on platforms but platforms will live inside these stories. And why do I say that, you know, because as I said, the creator explosion has already commenced. this is what typically it looked like if I really wanted to be very very generous let’s say for every author who’s been living and has been published for every lyricist who has written a song for every singer for every director every filmmaker in any form anyone from a literary sense if I were to out of eight billion people right now my sense is that number or whatever would probably be about 10 million but if I took the entire creator economy of what’s happening I’ll probably jump a little more we are heading from that world to potentially billions of sort of creators across this entire space and that is the reason why I feel the next Disney our own YRF or Marvel may not be a company but it could very well be a community which is coming and therefore So, you know, let me, no talk is incomplete on media entertainment without, you know, some perspective, you know, on our most visual form, which is still the most sort of, you know, expansive form of theaters.

I don’t believe, you know, that we are going to see the end of that. What we are going to see is more eventized immersive screenings, more mixed reality environments, and hopefully interactive participation. So the formula one is storytelling, premium, spectacular, and experiential. And with this in mind, I feel now coming to the last two slides of why India can lead. In an era where cultural depth becomes a comparative advantage. It’s important, and I really hope that, you know, this is something, you know, we’re a nation with so much of history. The first is the fact that we have demographic energy. We all know this, right? We have linguistic complexity. I often say, you know, we were hosting the American delegation three days back, and there were 120 of us.

We were the first group of them. And I said to them, I said, you know, this is probably the most somber American delegation I have seen across industries. And I asked them, I said, you know, why is it? I mean, is it because of whatever is happening in the traffic, et cetera? Or is somebody actually sort of, you know, concerned or has been using the T word with you all? So I said, you know, as far as I know, intelligence is still pretty much duty free. But having said that, the point I was making to them was I said, listen, even our models here in India have been trained on chaos. And complexity of language and nuances have a huge opportunity.

I think we have massive, you know, cultural depth. Five, six thousand years of storytelling experience. And finally, we’re a nation of startups, you know. We’re an entrepreneurial ecosystem across every sector. And that is one of the reasons why I feel. This is certainly a category where India can lead and show the world what’s possible. So with this in mind, my sense is by 2030, I believe 10 million AI -assisted creators, regional studios, real -time cinematic production, immersive, devotional, cultural platforms, and leading to mainstream sort of events. There’s a thought I’ll leave for you. With all of this, it looks very good. But there is, you know, nothing looks sort of just hunky -dory, as it were. And the thought is we’re also moving from a world of finite.

If I look at content today, in whichever platform it is, right? We make 1 ,500 films. Hollywood makes 250 films. We have 900 TV channels. We produce so many hours across the world. It is this. We have so many radio networks. We have 2 ,500 print publications. It’s all finite. In a gen AI leading to… an AGI world, we will move from finite to infinite. Now, no industry is in a position to, if I’m doing cement and I have 30 million tons of cement capacity, I know India is growing in a particular way, I add a couple of million tons and that’s fine. But if I go in that category and start adding 30 million tons all over again, you know, it’s not sustainable.

So there is a thought, there have to be reimagination of, you know, business models. And to me, the biggest reimagination of this is no more linkages to just advertising and the traditional subscription, etc. This ecosystem is made for commerce. We need to get and engage into that world from community to commerce is an integral part of leading this way. Which is why I feel that civilizations are not defined by the tools they use. They are defined by the stories they tell. Thank you. And artificial intelligence will be built everywhere, but the next storytelling civilization… can rise right here. By 2030, let it be said that India just did not scale AI. We narrated it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir, for your wonderful remarks. For our next keynote, we have Mr. Naveen Tiwari, founder and CEO in Mobi. We welcome you to the stage, sir.

So good to see everybody here. Thank you. Firstly, I must congratulate the event organizers, the AI Impact Center.