It's an AI wave in India's creative industry but the missing link is adoption and execution

artificial intelligence

A lot was said about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is amplifying creativity at the inaugural edition of the World Audio Visual Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025 where heads of global technology companies like Adobe, NVIDIA spoke of how creators can bring stories to life with generative AI (GenAI).

Anish Mukherjee, Solutions Architect at NVIDIA highlighted the practical applications of generative AI in media and showed AI-powered solutions including converting static images to digital humans, multilingual voice-overs, and audio-based character animation. Using NVIDIA’s Fugato model, he showcased AI-generated music and realistic lip-syncing for dubbing. He also introduced Cosmos, a suite of foundational models for video generation and simulation-based training via the Omniverse platform.

While a lot of AI tools are coming into the picture, the adoption of them is low.

Only 24 percent film studios in India use artificial intelligence (AI) tools while 76 percent of US studios use AI tools in production, according to a report titled ‘The Future Of The Indian Entertainment Business In Partnership With The World’.

The gap is striking, given India’s national INDIAai mission, with Rs 10,000 crore allocated to building an AI ecosystem, the report said.

While adoption barriers exist in capital expenditure requirements, skills gaps and IP (intellectual property) protection concerns, there are companies like Digikore Studios that are successfully integrating AI into their VFX workflow. The studio is not only able to reduce post-production time by 40 percent they are also preparing to launch a marketplace with 250 virtual production sets.

Virtual production could transform the economics of content creation, the report said. For instance, the traditional approach to produce a typical series might cost USD 3 million in location fees alone and require 120 shooting days. Using LED volume technology, the same series could be shot in 80 days, reducing costs by 30 percent while increasing creative control.

India has only two small-scale setups as of last year, despite having world-class VFX talent that works on Hollywood blockbusters, the report added.

On the other hand, India has shown its world-class technical capabilities like during IPL (Indian Premier League) 2024 which is a perfect example of innovation capability, reaching 525 million viewers on TV and up to 600 million on streaming, with features like Hype Feed watched by 123 million viewers, over four million fans participating in watch parties, and the predictive game played by 50 million viewers, generating 1.2 billion participations.

With AI bringing in significant transformation in the creative industry, the fear of it replacing humans also seeps in.

NVIDIA's Richard Kerris at WAVES said that AI enhances human creativity rather than replacing it. “AI puts tools in your hands—but knowing the craft, the basics, that’s still essential,” Kerris stressed.

Technology, tools and advanced workflows can reduce production time by 110 days for a typical series resulting in a 30 percent efficiency gain with a corresponding 25-30 percent cost reduction, according to the report cited above.

Rather than replacing creative talent, these technologies empower creators to produce more, iterate faster and achieve higher quality within constrained budgets. When global productions face budget pressures, India’s technology integration could position it advantageously in the international marketplace, the report added.

AI is projected to boost productivity in India’s media sector by 15-20 percent by 2030, primarily through content strategy optimisation.

This framework maps genres based on local demand and global appeal potential, offering a way to consider prioritisation.

One of the most interesting implications is how this framework might leverage India’s unique strength in regional cinema diversity. The distinct approaches of different industries like Malayalam cinema’s realistic storytelling, Tamil cinema’s technical innovation and Telugu cinema’s grand spectacles could be strategically combined to target different quadrants of this matrix.