Digital

Cutting edge film maker EiPi Media’s love affair with generative AI

Published

8 months ago

June 29, 2025

MUMBAI: Rohit Reddy may be lounging in his monochrome threads and bucket hat like it’s a lazy Sunday, but don’t let the chill vibe fool you, this man’s schedule is more packed than a Mumbai traffic jam. From his third-floor creative bunker in the chaos capital of Mumbai, he is juggling deadlines like flaming batons. Between AI wizardry and influencer fire drills, Reddy barely has time to blink at the traffic blazing past his floor-to-ceiling windows, let alone sip his coffee while it’s still hot.

As one is ushered into his conference room, he flashes a grin and shoots straight from the hip, “Sorry to keep you waiting! Got caught in an important business call.”

No fluff, no filter, just the kind of honest hustle you’d expect from a man who is steering the ship as advertising agency EiPi Media’s founder & CEO. Keeping pace with him are creative brain Tapoja Roy who scripts the stories, and Nikhil Chhabria, the agency’s go-to GenAI expert.

EiPi Media isn’t just making noise, it is orchestrating a full-blown content symphony. Whether it’s slick influencer videos, jaw-dropping CGI, or its latest AI-fueled experiments, this crew’s rewriting the rules of brand storytelling—one pixel at a time.

Forget your preconceived notions of a typical production house. EiPi Media didn’t exactly start with cameras and a clapperboard. Instead, it kicked off as a social media marketing agency, leveraging Rohit’s wife, co-founder and actress Anita Hassanandani’s television connections to exclusively manage TV artists in 2018.

“There was nobody managing TV stars at scale at that time,” recalls Rohit, who spent a good dozen years in finance and insurance before turning entrepreneur. “So we began the agency, but we didn’t want to onboard any talent as such. We were doing this whole brokering deal.”

Initially, its client roster was a cosy club of four or five friends in marketing, including big names like Domino’s and Neo to whom they supplied artistes for a fee. But the pandemic, a rude awakening for many, proved to be EiPi Media’s unlikely launchpad.

Rohit Reddy

“In 2020, when the pandemic happened, all these clients of ours, they cancelled the POs,” the founder explains. “That time I realised that I cannot be dependent on just a few clients.”

This realisation sparked an aggressive sales drive, leading to inroads with giants like Nestle and P&G. As brands shifted television budgets to digital, EiPi Media found itself in the sweet spot, growing a whopping 8x in 2020. The team quickly evolved from merely supplying talent to offering creative ideation and eventually a full-blown production. “Brands had a lot of comfort because they had to only talk to one person,” he notes, highlighting the firm’s end-to-end, in-house model as a key differentiator.

EiPi Media’s ascent wasn’t just about diversification; it was about embracing cutting-edge tech. 2020 marked its deep dive into visual effects, earning the agency a reputation as a “marketing tech company.”

It was creating “frugal productions” at a time when big production houses wouldn’t touch small budgets.

Then came 2021, and with it, a massive leap into CGI. EiPi Media got busy crafting dinosaurs and animations for internal projects. “I was very sure that I needed to take this CGI initiative to brands,” Reddy asserts.

Its big break came with Adidas, which had just signed the Indian cricket team. EiPi Media delivered a CGI video for the jersey launch. Since then, it has churned out over 60 large and hundreds of smaller CGI campaigns.

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A post shared by EiPi Media (@eipimedia)

“For us, CGI was always an extension of VFX,” he clarifies, “it was always improving the content.” This foresight gave EiPi a two-year head start on the competition.

Just as others were jumping on the CGI bandwagon, EiPi Media was already pivoting to AI. Its first AI video dropped in October 2023, well before brands even grasped its potential.

“We kind of saw the vision that AI would actually be a very, very strong pillar to production,” he states.

The real game-changer with AI, he believes, is its ability to “actually replace production.” While pre-production (concept, script, storyboard, casting) and post-production (editing, music, colour grading) remain manual, the entire production phase is now happening on computers. “There is no casting. There is no hair makeup. There is no costume. There is no actor. There is no director,” he enthuses. This significantly slashes costs and turnaround times, a true relief for clients.

Hdfc Bank and Fenesta Windows were among its first clients to embrace generative AI commercials, alongside international brands like South African noodle company Indomie and Lenovo.

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What excites Reddy the most about generative AI?

“There’s no limit to creativity now,” he shrugs. “Ideas that were once too expensive or physically impossible to execute in traditional or even CGI production are now within reach. Imagine a conversation on Mars, with participants levitating, becomes possible at a fraction of a cost and a fraction of a time.”

While some might argue AI stifles creativity, he believes the current limitations lie with the nascent technology, not human ingenuity. Its viral “Mahabharata 1.0″ video, made in just six hours as an in-house project, proved the concept. The recently released “Mahabharata 2800,” an upgraded version, showcases the rapid advancements in tools.

The decision to create a generative AI film based on the Mahabharata was driven by its boundless storytelling potential. “It has so many layers, so many characters,” he explains. The epic’s fantastical elements also play well with current AI capabilities. Though its first Mahabharata trailer went viral, sparking calls from major publications, he cautions that making a full-length film with generative AI is “not at all easy” yet, as the tools aren’t quite there for complex storytelling. Disconnected content, like trailers, is where AI shines for now.

The demand for generative AI content is skyrocketing, but supply is scarce., points out Reddy

“We are the only people supplying good content,” he claims, attributing the agency’s advantage to its extensive experience in traditional filmmaking. “We understand storytelling. We understand scripting. We have everything in-house.”

This blend of creative and tech expertise positions EiPi perfectly to ride the AI wave.

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Reddy predicts a hybrid future for TV commercials, where elements like exterior shots or traffic scenes might be generated by AI, while core scenes will be traditionally filmed. Smaller budget ad films (those around Rs 10-15 lakhs) are ripe for a full AI shift, potentially reducing costs to Rs 3-4 lakhs.

EiPi Media’s traditional filmmaking team boasts around 30 people, while its burgeoning AI team, currently eight strong, is focused on learning and experimenting. Hiring is less about age and more about interest and strong English skills for effective prompting. He laments the lack of impressive AI-generated visuals in India, partly due to the unavailability of tools like Google’s Veo 3. Fortunately, EiPi Media’s Ohio office gives the outfit early access to such innovations.

Its creative team, a lean but experienced trio, has penned over 3,000 scripts. For CGI, it outsources to Iran and Russia when the need arises, favouring the artists’ attention to detail and quality over Indian talent, who are more often than not tied up with Hollywood projects.

On the gen AI front, the team leverages a suite of tools, including Midjourney (now generating videos), Halo, Google Veo 3 (praised for its lip-sync function), and Runway.

He believes the playing field for generative AI is level globally. “The only people having an advantage are people who are investing more time than the others.”

While he foresees AI complementing and eventually replacing traditional filmmaking in genres like mythology and fantasy, he believes it will take about five years for the technology to fully mature for comprehensive storytelling.

Rohit Reddy

EiPi Media’s focus will remain firmly on branded content, leveraging video as the primary communication medium. Its future plans involve significant investment in an R&D department dedicated to “just experimenting tools, going crazy, basically.” He anticipates that within the next two years, directors and producers will increasingly outsource specific scenes and elements to AI, particularly those that are not cost-effective or time-consuming to shoot traditionally.

It does not take too much intelligence to guess who will end up getting the fruits of this transition.

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Digital

Bartronics India unveils AI-powered voice app to scale agritech platform

Published

4 days ago

February 6, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

HYDERABAD: Bartronics India Limited is stepping up its agritech ambitions with plans to launch a voice-first, multilingual AI-powered application in March, following a successful pilot across Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

The pilot phase saw strong engagement from farmers, supported by assured produce off-take through partnerships with SNN and Origo Commodities. Drawing on on-ground feedback, the company is now upgrading the platform to enable deeper interaction, data-driven intelligence and scalable adoption across rural markets.

At the heart of the revamp is AI-enabled voice interaction in major regional languages, including English, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Kannada. The voice recognition and conversational agent framework is being developed by Ampivo Smart Technologies, aimed at transforming the app into an intuitive digital assistant for farmers.

Once launched, the platform will offer voice navigation, real-time alerts, contextual advisories, educational tools and interactive knowledge support, designed to improve decision-making across the agricultural value chain.

The application will also capture consent-led farmer data to connect users with electronic mandis and wider marketplaces, while enabling participation in sustainability-linked initiatives such as carbon credit programmes.

Bartronics India managing director Vidhya Sagar Reddy, said the voice-first approach reflects how rural communities naturally engage with technology and forms the foundation of a broader rural intelligence layer under Project Avio Agritech. The company aims to onboard 20 million farmers over the next three years.

Bartronics India currently operates across nearly 5,000 villages, delivering last-mile banking and digital financial services, and is expanding into integrated agritech and agri-trade solutions through its Project Avio platform.

Digital

Messi magic kicks off in India as immersive football experience lands

Published

5 days ago

February 5, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: When football dreams need a passport, Lionel Messi is ready to stamp it. The Messi Experience – A Dream Come True, the internationally touring immersive exhibition dedicated to one of sport’s most influential figures, is heading to India this March as part of its 2026 world tour. After successful runs across Buenos Aires, Puerto Rico, Panama, Beijing, Chicago, Mexico City, Miami, Los Angeles and São Paulo, the exhibition will make its India debut in Mumbai on March 20, 2026, before moving to Bengaluru from June 19, 2026. The shows will be staged at Century Mills in Lower Parel, Mumbai, and Bhartiya City Mall in Bengaluru.

Produced and promoted by Bookmyshow Live, the experience promises to pull fans inside Messi’s journey, not just his match highlights. “I am thrilled to see this project come to life and bring fans even closer to me both on and off the field,” Messi said, adding that the exhibition would allow Indian fans to relive the most unforgettable moments of his career.

Designed as a 75-minute, multi-sensory walkthrough, the exhibition unfolds across nine themed zones, blending artificial intelligence, immersive environments and exclusive content. Visitors can train like Messi, step into recreated match moments and explore personal stories that shaped his rise from his early days in Rosario to lifting the World Cup trophy in Qatar.

Bookmyshow chief business officer for live events Naman Pugalia said the India debut marks a milestone for football fandom in the country. He described Messi as a global cultural icon whose story transcends sport, adding that the exhibition reflects the company’s ambition to bring world-class immersive entertainment to Indian audiences.

Beyond the storytelling, the experience also features an official merchandise store and an activation zone, extending engagement beyond the exhibition halls. Whether for lifelong fans or first-time followers, The Messi Experience aims to turn football history into a walk-in memory, one that lets India play along with a living legend.

Digital

Work stress tops India’s mental health talk, not heartbreak or headlines

Published

5 days ago

February 5, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: When India opens up about mental health, the conversation keeps clocking in at work. A new conversation analysis by Consuma, an AI-native consumer insights platform, shows that workplace pressures are the most frequently discussed trigger in online conversations around mental health awareness in India. The study analysed 136,695 public conversations across Twitter, Reddit, Youtube and Instagram between January 1 and December 31, 2025. Within a focused subset of 20,272 conversations that explicitly discussed what triggers mental health awareness, nearly half 49.72 per cent pointed to work-related stressors, making employment the single largest trigger category online.

The findings echo concerns flagged at the policy level. India’s Economic Survey 2024–25 has already warned that hostile work environments and long working hours can hurt mental wellbeing and productivity. Online conversations suggest employees are feeling the strain long before policy catches up.

Among work-related triggers, poor work–life balance dominates the discussion at 24.37 per cent, followed by general workplace stress at 21.85 per cent and toxic work culture at 15.90 per cent. Long working hours account for 9.57 per cent of mentions, while job insecurity features in 7.50 per cent.

The numbers are backed by sharp, candid commentary. One user writes, “Most Indian employers overcomplicate employee wellness. Let people work async. Let them go for a run in the afternoon. Let them sleep in when their body needs it.”

Consuma notes that these findings apply only to conversations that explicitly discuss triggers for mental health awareness, not the entire universe of mental health discussions online.

The data shows that mental health discourse in India is overwhelmingly driven by adults in their prime working years. People aged 25–34 contribute 50.51 per cent of conversations, while those aged 35–44 account for 34.35 per cent. Together, they represent 84.86 per cent of the discussion.

Work stress, however, is not acting alone. Societal and educational pressures make up 33.98 per cent of trigger conversations, including societal expectations (14.42 per cent), academic pressure (13.92 per cent) and parental pressure (6.09 per cent). One widely echoed sentiment reads, “Indian parents will raise you with a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and shame in your soul.”

Taken together, the data points to a compounding “pressure stack” faced by working-age Indians balancing career demands alongside cultural expectations, education-linked anxiety and family pressure, all while chasing conventional life milestones.

Interestingly, the conversation is not limited to venting. Of the 26,311 conversations analysed for broader mental health themes, discussion is almost evenly split between core challenges (48.05 per cent) and solutions or support systems (43.81 per cent).

Mental health crises dominate the challenge cluster at 32.58 per cent, followed by stigma and lack of awareness at 20.27 per cent. On the solutions side, people lean towards culturally familiar, self-directed approaches rather than institutional pathways. Holistic practices such as music therapy and spiritual wisdom account for 17.34 per cent, practical stress management for 13.72 per cent, celebrity-led awareness for 7.64 per cent and government initiatives for 6.51 per cent.

The shift suggests that people are not only asking “what’s wrong?” but increasingly “what can I do?”even if the answers remain personal and decentralised.

Consuma’s analysis also zooms in on women’s health conversations, where mental wellbeing outweighs physical health topics. Among 1,934 women’s health conversations analysed, mental health accounts for 51.14 per cent, surpassing reproductive and gynaecological health at 37.07 per cent.

Younger adults dominate this space, with 18–44-year-olds contributing over 81 per cent of the discussion. In women’s health awareness triggers (3,489 conversations), societal factors lead at 45.2 per cent, closely followed by mental health drivers at 41.7 per cent.

Healthcare-related challenges appear less frequently at 7.4 per cent, but the tone is striking. Misdiagnosis and medical gaslighting recur as trust-breaking themes. One user notes: “Going to doctors is useless in India as a woman. First, they tell you to lose weight… Then they tell you that you are imagining it or that you are sensitive.”

The report was generated using Consuma’s AI-powered Rapid Research Platform. The dataset was cleaned for noise and duplicates and classified using a multi-coding methodology. Source-wise, the conversations came from Youtube (77,544), Twitter (41,121), Reddit (9,283) and Instagram (8,747).

In a digital space often crowded with noise, the findings paint a consistent picture, for India’s online audience, mental health conversations begin not in therapy rooms or hospitals, but at the workplace and the clock is still ticking.