Digital

Video hosting, ad distribution, monetisation solutions on one platform: VDO.AI

Published

6 years ago

October 14, 2019

MUMBAI: The world of video is constantly changing and evolving. Brands and platforms are looking for interactive solutions to monetise and distribute their content. The new platform of VDO.AI helps clients to target exactly these aspects from one point. VDO.AI co-founder Arjit Sachdeva reveals to Indiantelevision.com all the details about this new technology, its importance for the industry, and the challenges it has been facing. Edited excerpts follow:

1. When and why was VDO.AI established? How has the journey been till date?

Answer: From the past decades, television has been ruling the channel for advertisers to promote their products and services to the masses. Evidently, a formula was created – “the 30-second television commercial” which was backed by press, poster and radio adverts. But in recent years, the advertising landscape has seen a drastic change. There are now more brands to choose from, a whole range of different broadcast channels and publications and, of course, technology that has completely shifted the way we communicate. Probably, one of the formats is video advertising which has taken the leap from television to online portals. Today, video content is more engaging and it is more receptive to the audience who are watching it.

Hence, there is no contradicting the fact that video is rapidly becoming one of the most dominant forms of content consumption. While all the major social media platforms, as well as websites and portals, are shifting to video content at a rapid rate, still there is a need for the majority of publishers to get access to cutting edge video hosting, distribution and monetisation solutions.

VDO.AI is one of such platforms, which provide video hosting and distribution of advertisements and monetisation solutions. It came into existence in 2017 as a product. However, in its initial stage, the product was utilised in-house as a revenue generator for the company’s own web properties. But, after perfecting the solutions for six months we decided to launch it in front of brands and clients.

With the launch of the internal solution of VDO.AI, the company has managed to reach over 30 million page views across all GEOs. The product has managed to achieve 500 publishers all across geographies. Also, with a good bunch of qualified professionals and their expertise at VDOI.AI, it has enabled to deliver unparalleled desired result. The company till date tries to unleash all new business marvels in the fields of video content creation and advertising. All in all, the company is observing an influx of immense success as well as exponential development throughout.

2. Why was the name VDO.AI chosen?

Answer: The Name VDO.AI was coined basis two main factors:

a. The initials-VDO has been taken from the company’s in-house video advertising products

b. And AI- because the product showcases the contextual video to the final consumer by using intelligent algorithm of AI and ML to connect them with relevant context and video.

3. What were the key challenges that you faced during the initial stages of development?

Answer: Development of new products is now hyper-paced for many brands and more essential to success than ever. Remaining relevant, maintaining growth and entering new markets can expand profit potential. But for every new product that is successfully brought to market, there are challenges faced by a company. There are countless companies in the industry competing for share-of-wallet. This forces companies to stay vigilant beyond back-end design, engineering and prototypes. To win the race from confident ideation to successful execution, companies must rely on calculated steps to guide the development and marketing decisions along the way.

Similarly, there were a few challenges faced with the development of VDO.AI product:

a. Cutting time to market: Initially, the company shaved a week off a development timeline in order to capitalise on everything from being first to market to dominate the hypercompetitive market. Instead of sacrificing on the quality insights, the company worked on testing and retesting the product in house to ensure the viability in the long term market.

b. Technical Conundrum: At a primary stage, development in terms of technology was a challenge due to minimal availability of team that was working on one product while trying to create a new product.

c. Leading customers to your new product: Once the product was foolproof tested and ready, it was time to launch in the market. Hence, it was necessary to drive the customers towards the product. Since there were other competitors who were serving the same sort of services, it was quite tricky to serve the same purpose to existing customers. At the outset, the company tried to grip on small publishers in the country.

d. Providing product viability: There was a requirement for establishing enough information to confirm the authenticity of VDO.AI. In order to harmonise the product, testing the veracity of a concept via a prototype and other means were offered to discover to give consumer realistic and believable context on the product that encourages them to amplify. However, now it is easy to install software with minimal efforts required.

4. How has the perspective of the industry changed towards the video advertising platform?

Answer: Video marketing is at its dominant stage where in the next decade, 86 per cent of marketers will be using content to advertise, educate and entertain. Similarly, to provide a seamless path to publishers and advertisers, new formats are rising in consumption to bolster video as an effective and engaging medium. With the advancements in technology, publishers now being exposed to new formats for advertising. Let’s have a look:

1. Mobile advertising and higher ROI: Looking at the stats, in 2018, mobile ad spending was increased 20 per cent accounting for 75 per cent of all ad spend over $70 billion. In 2017, video marketing was brought in over $2.6 billion in revenue a number that was on the rise. Also, for app mobile video advertising, predictions say that there will be an increase of 78 per cent in 2018 to 84 per cent in 2023. This shows that although video advertising is necessary, but specifically focusing on mobile video can help brands to bring in more customers, more sales, and greater brand growth.

2. Advertising focus shifted to vertical video ads: In 2018, the growth of platforms like Snapchat and the newest Instagram TV created more resources to be put toward the creation of vertical video. Hence, this shows the higher preference of horizontal video as optimal for viewing experience. Industry research shows that phones are used vertically 98 percent of the time, so video finally caught up to user behaviour.

3. More video through influencer ads- It is predicted that spending on influencer marketing is estimated to reach $101 billion by 2020. Influencers carry a lot of weight when it comes to helping company to close a sale. Hence, consumers look to influencers at every stage of the buyer’s journey while making product decision.

4. More personalised video experiences through better data and technological advancement- The growth of video personalisation has also been facilitated by a growth in the technology and software sector, with new platforms making it easier (and cheaper) than ever before to customise video content at scale.

5. Increase in ad spend: As video consumption grows, platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn have made video marketing a primary focus. In 2018, brands spent over $90 billion dollars on video ads. Moreover, according to a recent Forrester report that number is expected to hit $102.8 billion by the year 2023. The explosion of video along with advanced analytics has made video advertising vital to any online marketing plan.

In a nutshell, marketers driving this spike in video ad spend will also be the leaders testing new formats. We can expect to see more brands adopting vertical, six-second, and non-skippable ads into their online marketing strategy this year. Together, larger budgets and optimised ads could create the perfect storm for capitalising on video’s exponential growth. We can only imagine the shifts in technology and online advertising this growth will lead us to the next level.

5. What are the technologies and what sort of data do you use to provide services to your clients?

Answer: At VDO.AI, the experts in creating innovative video marketing campaigns make use of the state-of-the-art AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology towards providing contextual videos as well as video marketing campaigns to selective publishing partners. The proprietary platform at VDO.AI at https://vdo.ai/, aims at integrating the best available demand sources with the high-end publishers out there. The integration helps in allowing a high-value video advertising ecosystem to thrive where both the publishers and advertisers get maximum value. With the help of the innovative video advertising technology, the integration of the AI enables the delivery of top-class video content creation as well as marketing services to the clients.

6. Name some of your clients and share a case study on how you helped them?

Answer: Some of the marquee clients are:

Notable Publishers Advertisement	Demand Partners
India Tv	Google
Scroll Mantra	AppNexus Advertisement
Jagran Media	Oath
TimesNow News	Pubmatic
The Hindu Advertisement	Beachfront
Maps of World	Gumgum

We have partnered with several premium publishers to distribute ads on a large scale. One of the success stories is mentioned below:

Mapsofworld is one of VDO.AI premium publisher involved in providing maps by creating high-quality maps for everyone. When started, it was just a handful of web pages and maps. But now it has now grown into one of the biggest websites people love to come back to.

VDO.AI partnership with Mapsofworld in March 2018 and helped them to reach the full potential by monetising the existing users on the website. At the initial stage, there were several meetings conducted to discuss the impact of video on the user experience and the existing client base. Gradually, after testing out few formats (in content, content-floating, and floating) the end results stopped at floating format which provided maximum performance in terms of revenue, UX as well as ads visibility from the advertisers POV.

In the end, VDO.AI was able to provide them with a growth in revenue by 47 per cent and also helped them increase the users on the website. It also successfully delivered and boasted campaigns of advertisers like Netflix, Nexa, Cadbury, Amazon with 83 per cent completed video views.

7. What is the way ahead for VDO.AI and also the video industry at large? What are your plans for the future?

Answer: VDO.AI is all prepared to serve the end clients and aiming to break the du-poly of Facebook & Google when it comes to top-notch video advertising. The team aims at extending innovative video content usage as well as advertising by encouraging VR & AR platforms for creating free access venues throughout.

Digital

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

Published

3 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

4 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

4 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.