Ram Madhvani Explores AI, Culture, And The Evolving Future Of Storytelling

National, 3rd December, 2025: Acclaimed filmmaker and visionary director Ram Madhvani took the stage at the 12th edition of the CII Big Picture Summit 2025, held on 1st and 2nd December in Mumbai. As one of India's foremost two-day forums shaping the future of the Media & Entertainment landscape, this year's summit convened leading creators, technologists, policy-makers and industry veterans to reflect on the rapid transformation driven by new technologies, evolving audience behavior, and India's accelerating global storytelling ambitions.

Ram, joined the panel Responsible AI and the New Frontiers of Storytelling: Is There a Lakshman Rekha? moderated by Biren Ghose, Founder & CEO, Astra Studios; alongside industry veterans, filmmaker, screenwriter, and Cineraas Entertainment Founder Sudhir Mishra; bestselling author and screenwriter Anand Neelakantan; Karman Unlimited Founder & CEO Sunita Uchil; and GenVR Research AI Co-Founder Gitanjali Sehgal.
The discussion navigated the evolving interplay between artificial intelligence and the creativity, ethics, cultural authenticity, and philosophy that anchor Indian storytelling. The panel discussed and questioned the ethics surrounding artistic ownership, machine intelligence, and the future of cinematic expression.

Reflecting on the philosophical and ethical dimensions of AI's growing role in filmmaking while drawing from his recent five-minute VR film on the Bhagavad Gita, he explored how technology continues to reshape cinematic language and human creativity. He remarked, "Today I think if you're not using AI or if you look down on AI, they now call you a specist, you're not a racist, you're a speciesist. So we are all currently, hopefully, not speciesists, looking at a different species in a way in which it's digging." Emphasising that the root word of technology, Ram satechnē, translates to art, he reiterated that cinema has always evolved through innovation from sound to colour to faster lenses. "I think currently AI is something that's going to liberate us, much like technological advancements have done so in every field, including cinema. So we're here to embrace that," he said. Addressing the future of creative ownership, he added, "Who would go up to receive the National Award? That sentient being, at some point, I suppose, would go up but for the moment, hopefully, the filmmaker."

The conversation then moved to the urgent need for cultural grounding in an era shaped by machine intelligence. Where Mr. Madhvani cautioned that the imbalance in global datasets mirrors older cycles of cultural dominance, talking about colonization, he said, "Earlier they came and conquered our land, and then we were able to save a bit of India. Then they came and conquered our minds with their food and their clothing. And now they are conquering our data." He underscored how Indian languages remain vastly underrepresented in AI training, noting that "My biggest problem right now when I'm using AI is how rooted am I going to be, due to the domination of the western knowledge systems in AI training as opposed to regional languages. And as filmmakers, obviously, we want to tell stories that are our own stories and rooted in our culture. But I'm finding that I'm not able to actually use AI as Indian as I'd like to."

As the panel explored how global markets shape narratives, Madhvani also warned of a deeper structural issue emerging from AI systems "They call it knowledge collapse; it's a gradual narrowing of information."

Through these reflections, Ram Madhvani reinforced the need for a future where technological progress goes hand-in-hand with cultural authenticity, ethical responsibility, and artistic depth-an approach that defined his presence and impact at the CII Big Picture Summit 2025.