iWorld
Band on the run: India’s AI musicians get physical
MUMBAI: What happens when an algorithm decides it wants to play live shows? You get Trilok, India’s first AI spiritual band, swapping pixels for people in a move that’s got the tech world doing a double take. The digital ensemble, which until now existed purely as ones and zeros, has just dropped its first live-action music video, “Shiv Kailasho Ke Vasi”, complete with masked performers bringing the virtual rockers into three glorious dimensions.
It’s the ultimate plot twist: technology creating something that then demands to exist in the real world. Like Pinocchio, but with synthesisers and significantly better production values.
The collaboration with boAt adds extra wattage to what’s already a high-voltage concept. While most bands go from garage rehearsals to digital streams, Trilok’s done the reverse journey, arriving at physical existence via the cloud. You could call it the ultimate download.
Collective Media Network, the masterminds behind this digital-to-physical transformation, are billing it as a breakthrough moment in AI-led creativity. They’re not wrong. We’ve seen AI write songs, generate art, and even compose symphonies, but an AI band manifesting in actual, maskable performers? That’s new territory.
The masks are a clever touch, blurring the line between artificial and authentic. Are these humans channelling AI characters, or AI characters finally getting bodies? The ambiguity is rather the point. It’s performance art meets tech demonstration meets spiritual rock concert, all rolled into one head-scratching package.
“Shiv Kailasho Ke Vasi” marks what Collective Media Network calls Trilok’s evolution from digital experiment to “living, breathing performance experience.” Whether AI can truly breathe remains a philosophical question for another day, but there’s no denying the band’s making the leap from virtual to visceral.
This isn’t just a one-off stunt, either. The announcement promises more content, deeper expression, and a growing real-world presence in the coming weeks. Trilok, it seems, has tasted the spotlight and wants more.
For boAt, known for their audio gear, the partnership makes perfect sense. If anyone understands the relationship between digital sound and physical experience, it’s them. Plus, backing India’s first AI band certainly beats another celebrity endorsement deal.
The really fascinating bit? This flips the usual creative process on its head. Normally, artists create music, which then gets distributed digitally. Trilok started digital and is now creating the artist. It’s technology giving birth to culture, rather than culture adopting technology.
Whether this signals a new frontier in entertainment or just a really elaborate marketing campaign remains to be seen. Either way, Trilok’s proving that in 2025, the line between artificial and authentic is getting delightfully blurry. Rock on, robots. Or is it rock on, humans playing robots? At this point, does it even matter?
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
