‘India must become the global hotbed for AI-native creative talent’: Vice chairman of JioStar Uday Shankar
India must seize the artificial intelligence moment to become the global centre for AI-native creative talent, Uday Shankar, Vice Chairman of JioStar and a veteran media executive, said at the IndiaAI Impact Summit. Calling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”, he urged the country to move quickly and shape the future of AI-driven storytelling.
Shankar, who has helped build some of India’s biggest television and digital platforms, said artificial intelligence can remove the barriers that have long limited India’s global creative ambitions.
He described AI as a force that could reshape the three pillars of media content, consumers and commerce by lowering production costs, personalising viewer experiences and unlocking new revenue models.
The JioHotStar executive began by recounting the various ways in which technology has impacted the media industry in India. This ranged from the introduction of personal computers in newsrooms to the launch of digital news platforms. India, he noted, has grown into one of the world’s largest media markets in just 25 years, reaching over 800 million video consumers.
Comparing India with countries such as South Korea, he said smaller nations have managed to capture worldwide attention with culturally rooted stories. India, by contrast, has faced structural constraints, limited capital, difficulty attracting global talent and a focus on domestic audiences. He pointed out the stark budget gap between Indian productions and Hollywood, where single projects can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
AI, he argued, can help close that gap. At JioStar, the company recently used AI-driven workflows to produce a 100-episode series, cutting timelines significantly while maintaining scale. “The old barriers are vanishing. The only real constraints now are imagination and creativity,” he said.
He then issued a clear call to action. “But opportunity and outcome are not the same thing. We need all stakeholders pulling in the same direction. To seize this moment, we need three commitments from everyone in this room.”
First, he urged the industry to embrace disruption rather than resist it. Second, he said, “India must become the global hotbed for AI-native creative talent,” calling for creators who can blend storytelling skills with AI tools. Third, he pressed for forward-looking regulation that supports innovation instead of slowing it down.
On Thursday, JioHotstar launched a ChatGPT-powered conversational feature through its partnership with OpenAI, allowing users to search for TV shows and movies using natural language rather than traditional menus. This feature incorporates “multilingual cognitive search”, enabling users to describe their viewing preferences in various Indian languages and receive tailored recommendations.
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