Rajkumar Hirani did not set out to make an AI film simply because the technology was new. When he came on board to create Bajaj’s 100-year corporate film, the idea had already been developed around the company’s historical connection with Mahatma Gandhi. His task was to turn that idea into almost 10-minute film that could hold an audience while balancing humour, emotion, technology and the weight of the occasion.
The result became an experiment in how artificial intelligence can be used to bring together real people, historical imagery and cinematic storytelling.
In a conversation with Storyboard18 Editor Delshad Irani, Hirani discussed the making of the film, his evolving relationship with AI and why he believes the technology should be used to expand creative ambition rather than become a shortcut for creators.
For Hirani, the most important lesson from the project was not about what AI can automate. It was about what the technology can make possible.
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From a corporate film to a filmmaking experiment
Hirani says that the first phase was deliberately technology-agnostic. For two to three months, the focus was simply on getting the script right.
“Initially, so while you script, then you never really worry about execution. You say, okay, let’s get the script right first,” he said.
The execution challenge was significant. The film required an actor to play Gandhi, while members of the Bajaj family had to appear and perform despite not being professional actors.
“If they are not able to act properly, the whole thing collapses and looks like a gimmicky thing,” Hirani said.
That led him to explore a technique involving performance transfer, using actors to generate performances that could subsequently be transferred onto the faces of the people appearing in the film.
The same approach was used to create Gandhi. Rather than having another actor simply portray the historical figure, the production team worked with archival stills and used technology to create a version of Gandhi for the film.
“For the first time, actually seeing an actual, real-looking Gandhi,” Hirani said, describing the ambition behind the experiment.
The process was far from seamless. Hirani says there were problems with facial changes and variations in the speed of performances. He does not consider the result perfect, but believes it reached a point where it could be presented to audiences.
AI is coming, whether creative industries are ready or not
The Bajaj project also reinforced Hirani’s broader view of AI. He sees the technology as something that cannot simply be resisted or ignored.
“It is technology that cannot be stopped,” he said. “It’s the biggest thing of the century.”
Hirani compares the current AI disruption with the internet boom of the 1990s. While cinema is one area being affected, he believes the implications extend across virtually every field.
That does not mean the transition will be without consequences. Hirani expects ethical questions and the need for regulation to become increasingly important.
But he argues that the pace of technological change makes resistance an unlikely strategy.
He recalls his father selling typewriters in the 1980s and believing that the business would remain secure because schools, colleges, government organisations and companies would always need typewriters. The arrival of computers changed that assumption almost overnight.
“In one year, his business was wiped out,” Hirani said.
His conclusion from that experience is straightforward: rather than attempting to avoid AI, creative professionals will have to learn how to work with it.
“So I would prefer to make friends with it,” he said. “I will try to be as ethical as possible.”
The opportunity is not to make filmmaking easier
For Hirani, the most interesting potential of AI is not cost reduction or speed. It is the ability to execute ideas that may previously have been too difficult, expensive or technically impractical.
He sees a future in which filmmakers can use AI alongside conventional production rather than replacing the entire filmmaking process with it.
“You can use it for certain things. It opens up options of things which I couldn’t do earlier, either because of execution problems or because of cost issues,” he said.
That, in turn, could change the boundaries of creative ambition.
“We will have to really work on imagination and think,” Hirani said, arguing that creators have historically limited their ideas by what they believed was technically possible.
AI, he believes, can remove some of those constraints.
“Now you can really go out and think what you want and there’s a great chance of being able to achieve it.”
But the transition will also create disruption for parts of the production ecosystem.
Hirani expects technology to affect people involved in more traditional production processes, particularly where large physical sets and labour-intensive construction are involved.
The answer, in his view, is not an instant solution but a period of discussion, experimentation and adaptation as the industry works out how different roles will evolve.
The technology matters less than what audiences see
Despite the sophistication of the technology behind the Bajaj film, Hirani says the audience ultimately does not care how something was produced.
“For a viewer, it doesn’t matter whether 300 people shot it on a set in a sunny day, or it was just an algorithm in a small studio,” he said. “What they are seeing is what they’re seeing.”
That puts the emphasis back on the fundamentals of filmmaking.
“So finally, it is actually all about the content. It’s all about the story.”
One reaction to the Bajaj film particularly stood out for Hirani. Someone from the film industry who was familiar with cinema saw the film and praised the performances, without realising that AI had been used in creating them.
For Hirani, that was an important indication of where the technology is heading: the boundary between traditional production and AI-assisted creation is becoming increasingly difficult for audiences to identify.
There are no fixed rules for storytelling
The same resistance to rigid assumptions applies to Hirani’s view of audiences.
He rejects the idea that shorter attention spans automatically mean shorter storytelling. Audiences may consume short-form reels, but they can also spend hours watching long-form content if the material keeps them engaged.
“I’m a very, very strong believer in the fact that content is the king,” he said.
Hirani argues that conclusions about what audiences want are often based on what happened to work during a particular period. A successful genre or format can quickly become a perceived rule, only for another film or piece of content to disrupt that assumption.
For him, the underlying principle is engagement.
“If you’re going to engage them, then it really doesn’t matter whether it’s a horror film, it’s a comedy,” he said. “It’s about engagement, how you keep them engaged.”
That also means there are no universal rules around length or platform.
“There are no rules. It’s up to the maker.”
His advice to creators is similarly platform-agnostic: good content can find its audience wherever it is distributed.
Hirani is sceptical of the microdrama boom
That does not mean Hirani believes every new content format represents a meaningful evolution in storytelling.
Asked about the rise of microdramas, he questioned whether the format’s popularity was being driven by genuine changes in storytelling or by the success of a few early players prompting others to follow.
He described the format as, at least in its current form, a potentially artificial way of maintaining attention.
“I think it’s very artificial way of keeping somebody engaged,” Hirani said. “It’s not real storytelling. You’re generating hooks every minute to keep people engaged.”
For him, the distinction matters. A story should not simply manufacture a new cliffhanger at regular intervals to prevent an audience from leaving.
At the same time, Hirani acknowledges that predicting audience behaviour is extremely difficult. Formats that once appeared unlikely can become mainstream remarkably quickly.
“If somebody would have told me years back that reels will work, I would have said, no, no,” he said.
The proliferation of content also makes originality harder. Audiences today have access not just to Indian cinema but to stories from around the world, meaning creators increasingly encounter ideas that resemble something viewers have already seen.
Hirani says this is something he has experienced himself. Ideas he has developed have occasionally overlapped with films that appeared before his own work could be made.
For him, this is part of the reality of a world in which millions of people are consuming and creating stories simultaneously.
AI should expand ambition, not replace it
Ultimately, Hirani sees the biggest danger in AI not as the technology itself, but as the temptation to use it as an easy substitute for creative thinking.
The Bajaj project, he argues, demonstrated a different approach. AI allowed the filmmakers to create a version of Gandhi, bring non-actors into the film through performance technology and expand the visual scale of the story.
The technology also made it possible to move beyond the more restricted environments originally envisaged for the film, opening up possibilities such as larger locations, historical settings and scenes involving Gandhi and Jamnalal Bajaj.
For Hirani, that is the more meaningful way to think about AI.
The question is not simply whether a creator can now make something faster or cheaper. It is whether the technology enables an idea that could not previously have been executed.
“You best to make a friend of it. You can’t avoid it,” Hirani said.
Watch out for the interview on Storyboard18 TV and our YouTube channel.
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First Published onSeptember 28, 2026, 22:37:45 IST
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