AR Rahman's Secret Mountain taps Google Cloud to develop AI entertainment experiences

A R Rahman

Music maestro AR Rahman will harness Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure to create next-generation immersive entertainment experiences for global audiences through his metahuman digital avatar band Secret Mountain.

The collaboration between Google's Cloud unit and Secret Mountain was announced on October 15, a day after the tech giant unveiled a $15-billion AI hub in in Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam, its first such facility in India.

What is Secret Mountain project?

Aannounced in February 2024, Secret Mountain is a virtual band comprising six virtual avatars from diverse races and cultures, including Cara (an Irish singer-songwriter), Zen Tam (a Tamil rapper),and Blessing (an African percussionist and vocalist).

“Secret Mountain is about reimagining how music, storytelling, and technology come together to create new experiences for audiences all over the world. Behind each character is a team of producers, singers, creators, dancers, choreographers, actors, and mentors, in a celebration of passionate human talent, at its core, each dedicated to their art," Rahman said in a statement.

"AI is a catalyst for innovation, enabling artists to create, experiment, and perform in ways that were once impossible. Together, we are building a bold new world of entertainment where human artistry and AI technology stand side by side to inspire audiences everywhere.”

How will Secret Mountain use Google's AI models?

The initiative will leverage Google's advanced AI models, including Gemini, Imagen, and Veo, to bring hyper-realistic avatars, real-time fan engagement and diverse music experiences to audiences worldwide, the company said.

Veo 3 will power avatar embodiment and video generation, while Imagen and Gemini Flash 2.5 Image (Nano Banana) will be used for high-quality visual and image creation. The avatars’ intelligence and conversational abilities will be powered by Gemini 2.5 Pro and trained on custom datasets, serving as the multimodal “conversational brain” that enables real-time fan engagement at scale.

"India is showing how to fuse world-class artistry with production-ready AI, and this collaboration with AR Rahman is setting a new bar for the industry. By building on Google Cloud's infrastructure and advanced AI models, Secret Mountain is not only delivering an awe-inspiring interactive digital experience, but also ensuring that security, scalability, and governance are built-in," Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in a statement.

Read: AR Rahman meets Sam Altman as they announce collaboration in upcoming AI music project Secret Mountain

Shankar Mahadevan's AI collaboration with Google

Earlier this year, Grammy-winning composer and singer Shankar Mahadevan also partnered with Google to experiment with Music AI Sandbox, a suite of experimental tools developed by Google DeepMind in collaboration with YouTube and informed by insights from music industry professionals.

Several Google executives visited Mahadevan's Mumbai studio, spending more than 30 hours with him, his producer, lyricist, and sound engineer to explore how Music AI Sandbox could help create film soundtracks.

Mahadevan used text prompts in Music AI Sandbox to create musical samples that incorporated various Indian instruments such as the dholak and tabla. He then looped those samples in his digital audio workstation, riffing on vocal melodies, and went back to Music AI Sandbox to generate additional instrumental elements.

TextFX, a Google Labs experiment, was used for lyrical inspiration. This collaboration led to the creation of a song called Rubaroo, Moneycontrol reported in May.

India, which represents Google’s largest market by users, is a crucial region for the tech giant’s AI efforts amid rising competition with rivals such as OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft.