Entertainment has always been constrained by two things: time and scale. A film can take months to produce. A web series can involve hundreds of people behind the scenes. And even the largest streaming platforms release only a limited number of titles every year. But what if storytelling could be produced the way software is built?
That question sits at the centre of what Kuku has showcased at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. The company has unveiled India’s first slate of AI-generated microdramas while demonstrating an AI storytelling stack designed to take a story from idea to screenplay to screen with dramatically reduced timelines.
For CEO Lal Chand Bisu, the launch is less about a single technological experiment and more about a structural shift in how entertainment might be created in the coming years.
“In the future, premium storytelling will work like social media feeds,” he said. “You will open the app and your movie feed will be completely different from your friend’s feed.”
If that sounds ambitious, Bisu believes the ingredients are already falling into place. From shrinking production cycles to enabling creators to multiply their output, AI, he argued, has begun reshaping the mechanics of storytelling itself.
From A Hindi-First Idea To A Platform For Hundreds Of Millions
The origins of Kuku’s storytelling platform have come from a deliberate attempt to build something deeply Indian. Bisu explained that the idea took shape after the exit from Toppr, which later became part of Byju’s. “When we sold the company, we decided that we have to start a new startup,” he said. “Once you start building something, it becomes very difficult to work for someone else.”
But the next venture needed to meet specific conditions. “We felt that we had to make an Indian product,” he said. “Our first product was in Hindi. We wanted to impact the Indian audience, millions of people, hundreds of millions of people. That is why we decided to build a B2C company.”
The team has also deliberately avoided businesses that depend on large operational infrastructures. “We didn’t want to run something where thousands of people are doing operations,” he said. “We didn’t want to run something like a large logistics-heavy company.”
Instead, the founders have looked at the internet’s content ecosystem and identified an opportunity in premium storytelling. “There are two kinds of content,” he said. “One is UGC, user generated content like YouTube or Instagram where there is infinite supply. The other side is premium content, which only exists if someone produces it.”
The goal, he said, has been clear from the beginning. “We decided that we will build the largest premium storytelling platform.”
Why Kuku Started With Audio And Why Video Became The Bigger Bet
The first step in that journey has come through audio. “We started with audio because we didn’t have money,” Bisu said with a laugh. “Audio streaming is cheap and production is easier.”
He explained that the distributed nature of audio production has allowed creators to collaborate across cities. “A writer can be in Bhopal, a voice artist can be in Jaipur and you can still create a show,” he said. That early strategy led to the creation of Kuku FM, which has grown into one of India’s audio storytelling platforms.
But over time, Bisu has realised that video storytelling offered a far larger opportunity. “The audience that consumes audio is a little niche because it depends on lifestyle,” he said. “People listen when they are commuting or exercising.”
Video, on the other hand, has universal appeal. “Everyone can watch videos,” he said. That shift has resulted in the launch of Kuku TV, the company’s microdrama platform. “It has already surpassed Kuku FM in usage,” he said. “In fact, it crossed it two quarters ago.”
When Movies Are Made With Software, Scale Changes Everything
The real disruption, however, has come from the way Kuku has begun experimenting with AI-led storytelling. At the summit, the company unveiled a slate of AI-generated microdramas spanning mythology-inspired stories, futuristic fiction and superhero narratives rooted in Indian themes.
For Bisu, the motivation has been scale. “In the traditional model, making content is operations-heavy,” he said. “If you want to make fifty movies, you suddenly need hundreds of people, camera crews, production teams, locations.”
Scaling that system, he argued, becomes extremely difficult. “But if your movie is made with software, you can actually scale it,” he said.
AI has already begun shrinking production timelines dramatically. “Earlier it used to take around three months to produce something,” he said. “Now it takes about two weeks.”
And the timeline could shrink even further. “Eventually it may take just a day,” he said.
The economic implications could be significant. “When I say you can make a thousand movies in a month, that becomes possible because the cost is very low,” he said.
AI Won’t Replace Creators, It Might Multiply Them
Despite growing fears about AI replacing creative jobs, Bisu has framed the technology differently. “Many people think AI will automate creativity,” he said. “But that is not the right way to look at it.” Instead, he has described AI as a creative multiplier. “Earlier one creator could make one show in six months,” he said. “Now they can do it in a few weeks.”
Eventually, he suggested, productivity could increase dramatically. “One creator may be able to make ten stories in a day,” he said. Human involvement, however, has remained essential. “Humans are still in the loop,” he said. “AI’s output depends on the person sitting in front of the desktop writing the prompt.”
He has also pointed out that AI could expand access to storytelling rather than limit it. “Today maybe there are ten thousand creators who can produce premium storytelling,” he said. “That number could go to fifty thousand or even one lakh.”
For many aspiring storytellers, AI could lower the barriers to entry. “There may be someone with a great story but no access to a production house,” he said. “Now they can create it and see if people want to watch it.”
The Next Entertainment Feed Might Not Be Reels, It Might Be Movies
Ultimately, Bisu’s vision has extended beyond AI-generated shows to the very way entertainment could be consumed. He has imagined a world where premium storytelling behaves more like social media. “Today when you open Instagram you get a personalised feed of reels,” he said. “The same thing will happen with movies.”
Kuku has already been preparing for that scale. “We are planning to launch 1,000 movies in the next two years,” he said. In the future, entertainment libraries may expand dramatically.
“There will be millions of movies being produced every month,” he said. And no two audiences will experience the same catalogue. “You will open the app and get a feed of movies based on your taste,” he said. “Your friend will have a completely different feed.”
If that future arrives, the streaming platforms of today may look fundamentally different tomorrow. Because instead of competing over a handful of blockbuster titles, platforms might soon compete on something else entirely. The ability to generate stories- at scale.
