Welcome to the new-look movie set, where the quiet hum of a coding floor has replaced the cacophony of cameras, clapperboards and shouted directions.

The Collective Artists Network, a top talent agency for Bollywood A-listers, has long brokered the careers of real-life superstars. Now, it’s engineering digital ones. 

In its Bengaluru premises, filmmakers use artificial intelligence tools to create content based on Hindu mythology – a popular genre in India. 

One movie, based on the religious text “Ramayana,” has a scene showing the god Hanuman flying while carrying a mountain. A show based on a separate ancient epic, “Mahabharat,” features a sequence depicting the princess Gandhari, who blindfolded herself upon marrying a blind king. 

India produces the most movies of any country, and stars such as Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan command cult-like followings. But shifting audience habits, including the rise of streaming, are squeezing production budgets, many industry players say.

Studios in India are responding by deploying AI at a scale unseen elsewhere: creating full-fledged AI-generated films; using AI dubbing to release movies in numerous languages; and recutting endings of older titles to eke out additional sales. 

In the process, they are reshaping the economics of filmmaking, compressing production timelines, and pitting AI-driven efficiency against a recurring problem: Audiences have often reviewed AI content harshly, even when it sells.

Bollywood’s pivot to AI reflects India’s embrace of the technology broadly. Last year, Reuters detailed India’s wager that leaning in to AI will create enough opportunities to offset shorter-term disruption. 

AI could boost Indian media and entertainment firms’ revenue by 10% and reduce costs by 15% over the medium term, according to analysis by consulting firm EY. 

Vikram Malhotra, founder of Abundantia Entertainment, told Reuters the Bollywood production house is just starting out with AI filmmaking but expects one-third of its revenue will come from AI content within three years.

“Today you could make high quality live-action films and not just AI-generated films without the use of physical sets. Without the use of travel to any part of the country or the world. That's the kind of empowering it’s doing on the economic side," Malhotra said, adding that AI in the right hands could really elevate creativity in filmmaking. 

For filmmaker Supern Verna, machines do not have the same emotions, depth, empathy and sympathy that a human being has, and he feels that their storytelling will always “lack the human touch.”

For others like Vihnesh Shivan, who was attending the inaugural India AI Film Festival in New Delhi, AI is “going to co-exist with us and it is only going to be better experiences.”

“We are going to see better movies, better things like, certain visuals would not have been possible without AI. So, these are things which we are up for in the future.”

-Ram Lal Kushwaha, Priyanshu Singh, Sunil Kataria/Reuters