Mumbai: Until last year, Vibhu Agarwal was best known for the adults-only streaming platform Ullu, a planned SME IPO and touted as India’s only profitable streaming service. All that came unstuck when the government banned Ullu, ALTT and two dozen other apps for hosting sexually explicit content.
A year later, Agarwal is increasing focus on Vedic history, making shows and films on mythological figures for his Hari Om platform and has pivoted to developing AI-enabled films for the big screen including Dronacharya, slated for release this month.
“People complain that these days the content on OTT platforms cannot be watched with the family,” Agarwal told Mint in an interview. “We realized that if we want to educate our kids about our culture and heritage, we need to have a one-stop shop.”
“Right now, we are planning to sell this company, and we are already in talks with potential investors,” Agarwal said. “No one will buy the company, so the assets and IPs are up for sale. We also don’t want to work in this business because we are completely focused on Hari Om.”
AI bet
Agarwal launched the Hari Om app in 2024 as a dedicated platform for devotional and mythological shows even as he pivoted his third platform—Atrangii—from a free-to-air TV channel to a B2B business licensing shows to other services. Since March this year, Agarwal has been scaling up these mythology originals largely with the help of AI and a 132-member team, half of which is dedicated to the use of AI tools.
“I have been extremely bullish about AI—95% of my work right now is AI-enabled,” he said.
Agarwal is also producing AI films for the big screen under the Hari Om banner. Dronacharya, touted to be India's first AI Vedic history film, is slated for release this month. In total, Hari Om has made 11 original shows on various religious figures, including a retelling of the Ramayana and shows on deities such as Goddess Mahalakshmi and Bhagwan Jhulelal.
Hari Om previously worked with a string of local AI companies to visualize their stories, but Agarwal said they could not deliver the visual nuances needed for a mythology show.
“Hari Om is not a ‘techie-techie’ company unlike other AI companies entering the entertainment market,” he said. “These companies are run by tech persons, largely Gen-Z, between the ages of 13-22 years. They talk mostly about delivering tech-enabled visuals, but they do not have any researchers, writers or storytellers.”
Abandoned Plans
Agarwal said he hopes to announce a deal on offloading the assets of Ullu Digital this month.
He said he did not see value in challenging the ban by the ministry of information and broadcasting, which cited violations to the country’s IT Act, 2000, and 2021 amendments prohibiting “obscene” material. These provisions have been criticized for being vague and prone to misuse.
“Our lawyers had also advised us we could have challenged this order,” he told Mint. “But we didn’t want to do that. We felt even if we do challenge this, what is the end? We are businesspeople, we want to do business. We are not here to fight. We also don’t want to demonstrate that this is all we want to do and all we can do.”
Besides, Agarwal is pursuing other lines of business. He is piloting a mouth freshener brand named Paan Patakha in Uttar Pradesh and developing a patented “telecom portal.”
Agarwal set up a new entity for Hari Om named Bharat Next Gen Digital Entertainment Pvt Ltd last September; it is yet to file its financials. His company Atrangii Network reported revenue of ₹23.58 crore and a net profit of ₹57 lakh in FY25. In FY24, Ullu Digital crossed ₹100 crore in revenue with a net profit of ₹12.7 crore. Agarwal is not a director in any of his companies.
“I am merely working as a consultant,” he said. “I ended up in the media business while selling metal.”
Others investing in AI
Others are jumping into AI-powered entertainment as well, particularly those focused on religious and mythological figures.
Last year, talent management and digital entertainment firm Collective Artists Network (CAN) released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmyudh on streaming platform JioHotstar, an AI-rendered retelling of the Hindu epic. It opened to largely poor reviews. CAN is working on more AI-made mythological films for the big screen, including Chiranjeevi Hanuman, slated to release this year.
Reliance-owned JioStar appointed former Pixar executive Stephan Vladimir Bugaj as senior vice president of GenAI content and technology for the entertainment company this year. Bloomberg reported last week that JioStar is setting up a team of 80 AI engineers and preparing a slate of fully AI-generated shows.
̨Microdrama app Kuku TV, previously an audiobooks platform, also filed confidential papers for a ₹3,500 crore IPO last week, Mint reported. Kuku TV has been investing in AI to enhance its algorithm that recommends shows to viewers and is venturing into AI-generated shows as well.
AI adoption is well underway across media companies, industry body Ficci and consulting firm EY said in a report in March.
“Indian media firms are increasingly using AI, particularly for content creation and processing, with 60% of surveyed companies having adopted it,” the report said. “Content operations will become the most experimented and prioritized area for AI enablement within media organizations as 80% of respondents continue to believe it still has not been efficiently automated.”