Our omnivorous appetite: Rise of a seamless local-national consumer identity through vernacular creativity that AI will fuel

Global evidence shows almost 75% of top videos on YouTube trend only in the country they're being seen in, worldwide viral hits being exceptionally rare. Top 50 songs on Spotify are sourced from 16 languages that include Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian and Arabic. The world is moving rapidly from multicultural experiences to monocultural affections, driven by a scalable resurgence of localised content.

India, true to its unique texture, is busy cultivating an omnichannel identity, much to the delight of businesses and creators. An omnichannel identity can be imagined as a thoughtful, yet spontaneous, blend of nationality and locality in culture, community and consumption. It is rooted in generalised Indianness while generating maximum meaning from galloping micro-regionality as collaboration, not conflict. Connecting the dots can lead to opportunities, unified by an inspired union of craft and tech.

Odia Pakhala, fermented rice packed with micronutrients, now commands a premium. Maithili, Meitei, Apatani, Bundelkhand and Malabar cuisine are some of the niche 'kitchens' enjoying renewed meaning among diners. Litti chokha and Champaran meat have long surpassed the confines of Bihar, and northeastern cuisine is now progressively valued. Kombucha tea is thriving, along with Gujarat's mango pickle gor keri, Naga pepper and Maharashtrian salad koshimbir adding fuel to GoI's 'Mission Millets' momentum.


ITC's chips and namkeen brand Bingo offers universal flavours in tandem with its newly launched heat-and-eat line Kitchens of India, with inspired entities like Butter Murukku and Madras Mixture. From the universality of the Nilgiris, bespoke coffee is now a national pastime, with 100% organic specialty Arabica coffee from Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh and Nagaland's Kohima Latte with elevated flavours.

Beyond the dining table, roughly 46% of YouTube video consumption in India is in non-Hindi Indian languages including English, with voice-based search at the core. Aha (Telugu and Tamil), Hoichoi (Bengali), Planet Marathi, Chaupal (Punjabi, Bhojpuri), Olly Plus (Odia), and CityShor TV (Gujarati) are some notable success stories on the streaming TV front, inspiring many others.

S S Rajamouli's 2015 Baahubali and 2022 RRR are defining Telugu national blockbusters, while Rishab Shetty's Kannada fantasy action thriller Kantara escalated well. Meanwhile, Sarvam AI promises to elevate non-English Indian languages to the next level, with benefits of sovereign AI leading the charge in mass mobilisation.

Fruits of a 'universal' cocktail, earlier English and then Hindi, are being exhausted as a necessity for employment, a borrowed benchmark of belonging, or a measurable symbol of upgradation. As Indians get richer - and more comfortable with themselves - the deeply local is becoming source of aspirational curiosity, fuelled by easy tech access. It's no longer a parochial 'side-story' but a happy ally for mainstream living. It's not just 'my local' that's gaining traction but 'everybody else's local'.

Lakshmipriya Devi's 2024 coming-of-age Manipuri film Boong, co-produced by Farhan Akhtar, became the first Indian film to win a Bafta for Best Children's & Family Film. This will inspire the next generation of talent to think and build in vernacular, not just as some noble sentiment but as profitable opportunism.

A highly qualified pool of linguistic interpreters, whether human or bots, is well-conditioned to escalate content to a whole new swathe of consumers.

India's 28 states and 8 UTs are home to 7 overlapping cultural zones. The country's cultural and creative economy - 'orange economy' - already contributes 3.5% of India's GDP and employs some 8 mn people, with projections of generating 20 mn jobs by 2030.

An increasingly curious consumer audience is hungry for further 'inward' discoveries. A constantly evolving service delivery system, from quick commerce to broadband, is quickly getting equipped and upping its game. AI is getting prepared to be an accelerator in this expanding domain with its productive and efficient scalability ecosystem. Advanced LLMs will be able to analyse idioms, metaphors and cultural contexts to build bridges with non-cultural native audiences.

India's prolific pool of regional creative talent can now focus on creating in their local languages and natural domains, without having to migrate to hegemonic Hindi, or the designated mainstream, for survival and growth.

This may well lead to a soft power brand renaissance for India, a redefinition of soft power as we know it. No longer will it be just about the same-old 'successful' formulaic genres but a proliferation of authentic originality - creations by grandchildren no less seminal and lingering than grandmother's recipes, while remaining entrenched in global influences.

Anthropic's AI assistant Claude recently launched an ad campaign with the provocative tagline 'Keep Thinking'. Quite unintentionally, it is a valuable message for all of us wishing to be part of India's burgeoning omnichannel economy, as opportunities for thoughtful integration are endless when imagination breaks bread with technology. A new India, snapped out of colonial and postcolonial hangovers, seeking a union of depth, not width, on its own unimpeachable terms. And everybody's invited to this party.