iWorld
Decoding Viacom18’s SVOD blueprint for Voot Select
MUMBAI: Unlike other international markets, the Indian streaming revolution was started by major broadcasters and Viacom18’s Voot has been at the forefront of the OTT boom in the country. While it has already built up a robust 100 million monthly active user base, the platform now starts its journey into the subscription game. Voot Select enters the market at a time when SVOD has already started its uptick. As the platform aims to strike a balance between quality and quantity, it looks at a window of three-four years to turn the business profitable.
Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gourav Rakshit says that this next decade is going to be about subscription and depth of content consumption while the previous decade was about online video and most of it free. He adds that consumers that are now habituated to online video consumption are going to start to become more and more comfortable with online payments providing impetus to the category.
"We are very clear that we are not playing for quantity. We as a whole network are very clear that we will focus on great stories. And we have been great storytellers, by virtue of everything that you have seen of us over the last 12 to 15 years and creating content at any scale, in any language is second nature to us. That is exactly why we're so proud of the originals that we have. Each original is gripping, keeps you hooked right to the last episode, and you will not want to move till it's over- that is the strength of a story. The primary focus is the script, then everything else,” Voot Select and Viacom18 youth, music and English entertainment head Ferzad Palia comments on content strategy.
“The nature and width of offering that we have is unlike anyone else. Now it comes down to the quality of stories and we are confident of our stories being great stories,” he adds.
“We will do telco and other partnerships with all of the people that either have reached to the consumer, or in billing relationships with the consumer. Both such models makes sense to us and will help us in delivering valuable content to the frontline. Hence, anybody who has a billing pipe to a consumer is valuable to us. These are the partners that we would find a natural fit with and seek to engage,” Rakshit comments on the distribution.
The first step of the campaign will be to target existing AVOD subscribers. "We do have the significant advantage of scale of some of our other businesses, which will allow us to communicate our message and make our offering to them first,” Palia comments.
Voot Select has 30 originals planned in the coming financial year. The currently planned library of these 30 originals will consist of long-format content but the platform is evaluating some interesting digital movies too. The premium service has been priced at Rs 99 per month or at Rs 999 per year with an exclusive offer price of Rs 499 per year.
“The AVOD gives us wings to be able to run this SVOD business. Hence, we will continue to invest in the business and what we are really good at is doubling down on interactivity, moving the 300 million number to a billion and creating an AVOD world as a place where fandom can exist. The SVoD business is going to be all about storytelling. Select is made for stories, and so the best stories in the world are going to be curated for you. And that is kind of how I see the distinct role played by these two businesses,” Rakshit adds on the overall approach going forward.
eNews
India uses ChatGPT for technical tasks nearly 4 times the world average: OpenAI
From classrooms to code, India’s AI use is increasingly skill-driven and youth-led.
MUMBAI: If code is the new currency, India is already minting it by the million prompts. In the world’s largest democracy, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant abstraction or a boardroom buzzword. It is a daily companion, drafting emails in Hyderabad, debugging code in Bengaluru, polishing essays in Delhi, and fielding life advice in towns far beyond the metros. Fresh data from OpenAI’s “Signals” initiative offers a rare, granular glimpse into how India is using ChatGPT, and the numbers suggest the country is not just adopting AI; it is actively shaping its use.
India is one of the largest markets globally for ChatGPT’s weekly active users and ranks among the top five countries for API usage. With OpenAI’s global consumer base exceeding 800 million users, most of them on free tiers, the dataset captures adoption patterns that go far beyond enterprise subscriptions.
Indian users, notably, are punching above their weight when it comes to advanced capabilities. Among ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, usage of the data analysis tool is roughly four times above the global median. Use of Codex, OpenAI’s coding platform, is about three times above the median. Indians are nearly three times more likely than the global median to ask coding-related questions and almost twice as likely to seek help on education and learning.
This matters because it signals something economists call a shrinking “capability overhang”, which is the gap between what AI tools can do and how fully users exploit them. In India, that gap appears to be narrowing rapidly.
The geography of this coding intensity tracks the country’s technology hubs. Telangana, which is home to Hyderabad, ranks first in usage of OpenAI’s coding capabilities. Karnataka, home to Bengaluru, follows in second place, while Tamil Nadu comes third. In other words, the prompt traffic mirrors the tech corridors.
Nearly two-thirds of consumer ChatGPT messages in India are now non-work related, while slightly over one-third are tied to work. That marks a significant shift. In earlier phases of adoption, work was the dominant use case. It was only in early 2025 that non-work messages overtook professional use, and the divergence widened throughout the year.
Even so, India remains slightly above the global average in work-related usage. Around 35 per cent of consumer messages in India relate to work, compared with roughly 30 per cent globally.
At work, the emphasis is squarely task-oriented. Around 45 per cent of work-related conversations fall into “doing” behaviours such as drafting documents, transforming text, and completing tasks, compared with a much smaller share in non-work contexts. Technical help and writing dominate. In offices across the country, ChatGPT functions as a digital co-pilot that debugs code, polishes presentations, and unblocks stalled workflows.
Outside work, the tone shifts. Over 35 per cent of non-work messages revolve around practical guidance, which includes everyday advice and how-to queries. Roughly 20 per cent relate to seeking information. Nearly one-fifth involve writing tasks such as drafting or editing. Self-expression and learning loom large. In personal life, Indians appear to use AI less as an executor and more as an explainer, sounding board, and study partner.
India’s demographic dividend is clearly reflected in its AI habits.
Users aged 18 to 24 now account for just under half of all ChatGPT messages sent in the country. They surpassed the 25 to 34 age group in mid-2024 and have held the lead ever since. Globally, the 18 to 24 cohort accounts for about one-third of messages; in India, the share is markedly higher.
Combined, users aged 18 to 34 generate roughly 80 per cent of total consumer ChatGPT messages in India. Given that around 40 per cent of India’s population is under 25, the youth skew is unsurprising, but its implications are profound. Education-related queries, early-career problem-solving, and skills development are likely to dominate near-term AI impacts.
Usage patterns also differ by age. The 18 to 24 cohort accounts for a near majority of messages seeking practical guidance, technical help, and self-expression. Meanwhile, the 24 to 34 group sends a slightly higher share of multimedia and technical help queries relative to its overall share of usage.
If AI norms are being written in real time, it is young Indians who are holding the pen.
OpenAI does not collect gender data, but inferred patterns based on typically masculine and feminine first names reveal a measurable gap in India. A little under 60 per cent of users have typically masculine names, and just over 40 per cent have typically feminine names. This skew is more pronounced than the global average.
Worldwide, users with typically feminine names now account for slightly more than half of all messages. This shift occurred only in the summer of 2025, when feminine-name usage overtook masculine-name usage globally. In India, the gap persists, although it has been narrowing over the past year.
There are also topical differences. Users with typically feminine names are more likely to send messages related to self-expression, practical guidance, and writing. Those with typically masculine names lean more towards seeking information and technical help.
The data does not capture motivations, but it does highlight where inclusion efforts and digital literacy initiatives could focus if AI is to broaden opportunity rather than deepen divides.
The consumer story aligns with India’s broader AI momentum. The country ranks second globally in AI skills penetration and has one of the fastest-growing AI talent pools. It accounts for 9.2 per cent of global AI publications in computer science as of 2023, which represents a substantial contribution to research output.
At the same time, investment in AI data centres and digital public infrastructure is expanding, promising to knit together datasets and resources at scale. Enterprise adoption is also robust, which suggests that consumer experimentation is unfolding alongside institutional integration.
OpenAI’s “Signals” project is built with aggregated, privacy-preserving data and released with a time lag. It aims to provide a durable measurement layer for the AI era. The idea is not to track individuals, but to surface patterns such as where adoption is accelerating, who is using the tools, and what they are actually doing.
In a country as vast and varied as India, such evidence is more than academic. It shapes decisions about workforce training, small business support, education policy, and safeguards.
For now, the numbers paint a picture of a nation that is not merely consuming AI, but conversing with it in an energetic, experimental, and increasingly skilful manner. In India, the future of work and learning is not being downloaded. It is being drafted, debugged, and rewritten in real time.
