IICT, YouTube unveil four AI-enabled short films under Create with AI programme

The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) and YouTube have unveiled the first four AI-enabled short films produced under their Create with AI programme, marking the first output of the initiative launched in November 2025 to support AI-led creative projects in India.

The four films, developed by Eleventh Door Studio, Avium Studios, Karthik Kult Kreations and Kalpanik Films LLP, were unveiled at the IICT Theatre in Mumbai and released by the filmmakers on their YouTube channels, along with IICT.

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The programme combines IICT’s infrastructure and faculty mentorship with YouTube’s AI software, tools and credits. Participating studios used AI across concept development, visualisation, production and post-production.

The programme also includes behind-the-scenes content detailing the tools, techniques and creative processes used by the teams.

Filmmaker Rajesh Mapuskar attended the showcase and interacted with the creative teams.

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Dr. Vishwas Deoskar, CEO, IICT, said, “India has the opportunity to lead the next chapter of AI-led filmmaking. The Create with AI programme brings together institutional mentorship and access to advanced AI tools, giving Indian creative studios the opportunity to experiment, build capabilities and develop new filmmaking workflows. This is an important step towards creating an ecosystem that can place India at the forefront of AI-driven storytelling.”

Gunjan Soni, Managing Director – India, YouTube, said, “India has always been an extraordinary storytelling nation, but we are now seeing independent creators build production powerhouses on their own terms. Generative AI fundamentally removes production bottlenecks—giving creators valuable time back to focus on writing, world-building, and craft. Our partnership with IICT demonstrates what happens when fearless Indian storytelling meets frontier technology to produce world-class cinema on an independent scale.”

According to a new Gen Media India report by Public First and Google, generative media tools offer a 20% productivity boost for creative workers in India. The report estimates that this could save roughly 390 hours a year, giving creators more time for writing, world-building and refining their craft.

Ninad Raikar, COO, IICT, said, “The question for us was never whether AI will replace creativity, but what becomes possible when we equip creators with these new tools. Create with AI was designed as a hands-on experiment—bringing together Google and YouTube’s AI technologies, IICT’s infrastructure and faculty mentorship, and the imagination of filmmakers. The four films show that AI is most powerful when it expands creative possibilities while the filmmaker remains firmly at the centre of the storytelling process.”

The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) is India’s National Centre of Excellence for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics and Extended Reality (AVGC-XR), established with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, Government of Maharashtra, FICCI and CII.

Its first campus began functioning at the NFDC Complex in July 2025, while a permanent 10-acre campus is being developed at Film City, Goregaon. IICT currently offers 18 courses and has partnerships with global technology and media companies.