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Byte the Future AI is Serving Up Personalised Innovation
MUMBAI: Who knew your AC could get to know you better than your flatmate? At GoaFest 2025, the session “From Code to Commerce: Growth in the AI Age” proved that artificial intelligence is no longer just a boardroom buzzword, it’s in your shampoo, your samosa delivery, your summer holiday plans, and maybe even your next Instagram ad.
AI isn’t just flipping the script, it’s writing it, testing it, and turning it into 150,000 personalised versions overnight. In a power-packed panel at GoaFest 2025, leaders from HUL, Voltas, Makemytrip and Swiggy sat down with journalist Anuradha SenGupta to unpack how artificial intelligence is moving from the back end to front-of-house, making businesses smarter, faster, and far more personal.
Voltas CMO Pragya Bijalwan revealed how AI is transforming the home appliance business from cold machines to warm experiences. “Walk into a room and your AC already knows your favourite temperature,” she quipped. But it’s not just comfort AI is driving predictive maintenance, energy efficiency, and post-sale service readiness. Voltas uses customer data platforms to pre-empt service needs and personalise communication. One such campaign featuring their long-standing mascot ‘Mukti’ achieved a staggering 98 per cent CTR and an 87 per cent full-view rate with many recipients believing the video was speaking directly to them.
HUL, head of media & digital marketing Tejas Apte shared how AI now powers product prototyping through the company’s Agile Innovation Hub, even allowing 3D-printed SKUs based on global trendspotting. AI also fuels the “Shikhar” app, used by kirana store partners now responsible for 20 per cent of HUL’s sales. Retailers can simply snap a photo of their shelf, and AI recommends stock-ups, upsells and even helps co-create hyperlocal ad campaigns. “Last year, we generated 150,000 AI-personalised video ads with Arshad Warsi customised to individual kirana stores,” said Apte.
For Makemytrip, AI is less about flash and more about function. Director Sanket Tulangekar outlined how Myra, their AI assistant, has evolved to summarise reviews, answer natural language queries, and assist with travel planning. Myra now uses multi-agent orchestration, acting like an intelligent concierge handling everything from hotel bookings to activity recommendations. Tulangekar stressed the importance of red-teaming, bias testing, and moderation in ensuring AI-generated content is both accurate and safe.
Over at Swiggy, VP Arjun Choudhary revealed how generative AI has quietly revolutionised internal operations. Sales teams now use AI co-pilots for performance insights, and restaurant partners receive personalised business analytics through conversational dashboards. “Even non-tech teams are generating demos and PRDs using AI,” said Choudhary. AI also boosts consumer experience through in-session personalisation and catalogue video generation. The company recently condensed a three-month cataloguing task into a single week using AI.
Panelists agreed AI is now function-agnostic relevant across departments, not just digital teams. While job fears loom, Bijalwan emphasised it’s an evolution, not a threat. “It’s like when Google launched, initially scary, but now second nature,” she said.
Ethics, however, remain a looming shadow. From labelling AI-generated ads to ensuring consent with India’s DPDP Act, companies are cautiously optimistic. “Change is inevitable,” the panel echoed, “but accountability must keep pace.”
Whether you’re in media, FMCG, travel or tech, one thing’s clear: in the age of AI, relevance isn’t optional, it’s algorithmic.
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IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
