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In February last year, US film and TV mogul Tyler Perry decided to postpone the planned $800-million expansion of his Atlanta studio after OpenAI unveiled its video-generation tool Sora that stitched a full minute video from a single prompt.
Perry was not alone. From film-makers to game studios globally were experiencing the unique moment of ‘frisson’. One thing was clear: Entertainment will no longer be a byproduct of human creativity only. Artificial intelligence (AI) will no longer be a backstage productivity tool, and it will become a co-creator—reshaping how we write, animate, score and, crucially, how audiences experience stories.
Today, what we have is a unique ‘creative collaboration’ between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) that redefined entertainment to become immersive, captivating, and above all, more personal.
In the past couple of years, generative AI has not only become an integral part of the creative world, and there’s a bunch of generative AI tools for everything that the creative world may need.
Today, generative writing platforms can draft loglines, character arcs and alternate endings at the click of a button, letting show-runners prototype multiple narratives before the first table-read. In the world of entertainment, especially film and streaming, this capability translates into shorter development cycles and A/B-tested scripts whose beats are tuned to specific viewer cohorts. PwC’s latest Entertainment & Media Outlook notes that 61% of US CEOs expect generative AI to “improve the quality of their products and services” this year—a pivot from the cost-cutting narrative that dominated 2023.
For Indian studios navigating rising talent costs and a crowded over-the-top (OTT) landscape, AI-assisted drafting offers a practical hedge—smaller teams can experiment with high-concept IP, then localise it swiftly across languages and regions.
If writing engines chart the plot, character engines bring it alive. There are startups that now provide generative ‘brains’ that let non-player characters (NPCs) improvise dialogue, remember a player’s past choices and evolve their personalities in real time. It is not far when we’ll get our favourite gaming consoles pre-equipped with gen-AI tools that’ll weave the storyline of the game as we play according to the player’s personal preferences.
The same tech is creeping into streaming and live events. Imagine a TV series where one of the lead characters listens to your rant on social media, replies in-character and tweaks tonight’s episode arc accordingly. We’re fast getting into the time when fandoms expect two-way intimacy, reactive characters deepen emotional moats. This, at the same time, opens new micro-monetisation lanes, from paid chats to personalised merch drops, and so on.
On the consumption side, AI is dissolving format boundaries. With the advancement of gen-AI production time has come to a fraction of what it was earlier—be it video, audio or comics—making entertainment immersive, captivating, and more personal.
Today’s consumers are not just watching or reading—they are immersing. The modern user experience spans podcasts, vertical video, animated webtoons, graphic novels, games, and virtual reality. In other words, consumers today are frictionlessly hopping between podcasts, webtoon and interactive videos.
As formats blend and barriers blur, a unified, AI-powered storytelling ecosystem becomes essential. Platforms are already leaning into this trend—converting hit audio series into comics, and soon, animated shorts. In the western world, companies are exploring cross-format franchises
where a story can simultaneously exist as a show, an RPG (role-playing games), and a digital collectible.
And, AI is the connective tissue in this ecosystem—handling asset generation, continuity management, dubbing, visual translation, and user-specific narrative adaptation.
● High productivity: Generative AI cuts pre-production timelines by 30-50% in early pilot programmes, letting studios test more ideas with less capital.
● Bespoke entertainment: Recommendation engines can already serve “your” cut of a show; the next step is generating bespoke scenes, advertisements and even product placements mid-stream.
● Global IP from day one: Automatic dubbing, style transfer and cultural-context filters mean a Marathi thriller can secure a Brazilian fan base at launch.
According to the above-cited PwC report, global E&M revenues will reach US$3.4 trillion by 2028, with personalised digital experiences accounting for the bulk of new growth.
Well, all may not be well—at least there are questions around how ethical can AI be.
● Consent & compensation: After last year’s dual Hollywood strikes, SAG-AFTRA’s March 2024 animation pact requires explicit performer consent before a digital replica is trained or deployed. Similar guardrails are inevitable in India’s dubbing and VFX sectors.
● Bias & homogenisation: Models trained predominantly on western tropes risk flattening regional nuances. Curating diverse training datasets—and auditing outputs for cultural accuracy—should be a board-level priority.
● Provenance tracking: As synthetic content floods feeds, watermarks and blockchain-based credit systems will become essential for both trust and royalty accounting.
● Who gets paid? Fair monetization frameworks for voice actors, writers, and designers whose work trains AI systems are still emerging.
Regulators across the world are drafting AI transparency rules; creators who build ethical-by-design pipelines today will face fewer compliance shocks tomorrow.
As Software-as-a-Service transformed enterprise workflows, Story-as-a-Service (SaaS) models are beginning to transform content creation.
● Modular IP stacks: Write lore once, expose it via API so writers, comic artists and game designers can build derivative works without re-negotiating rights.
● Audience-in-loop tooling: Deploy real-time analytics (and generative branches) to iterate arcs mid-release, turning passive viewers into co-authors.
● Skill bridges: Offer template-driven creation layers so novices can contribute assets, then use revenue-share tokens to attract professional polish later.
This model does more than streamline production—it fosters creator economies around IP. Something like what Roblox did for the user-generated games, but for narrative universes.
In the twentieth century, content travelled in straight lines—from writer to screen, creator to consumer. AI curves that line into a loop where everyone can nudge the narrative. For studios, that loop unlocks scalable intimacy; for audiences, it transforms stories into lived experiences.
The challenge—and opportunity—for India’s entertainment giants is to weave these loops across languages, devices and genres before global rivals do.
The adventure is just beginning.
