Reliance Industries-owned JioHotstar on Thursday announced a partnership with Sam Altman-led OpenAI, set to transform the viewing experience into a natural, voice-led interaction. The partnership will integrate ChatGPT-powered discovery and immersive features into the country’s largest streaming platform.
In a press release, JioHotstar said that for over a decade, digital entertainment in India has largely followed a simple pattern of users scrolling, selecting and streaming. However, with this latest partnership, that is set to change. Through the “Multilingual Cognitive Search” feature, the company aims to put an end to the “what to watch” dilemma.
Viewers experience transformed
Terming it a first-of-its-kind innovation, JioHotstar said that viewers across languages, genres, and viewing contexts will now be able to find and explore content simply by speaking. The rollout will begin with select features across live and on-demand content, and will expand in phases. The partnership will also extend to ChatGPT, where users seeking entertainment recommendations can receive contextual suggestions and streaming links from the viewing platform’s catalogue.
Transforming the viewing experience, the company said that instead of navigating menus or entering keywords, users can now express their mood or situation and receive intelligent, context-aware recommendations instantly. The ChatGPT-powered voice assistant has moved beyond traditional keyword searches and offers suggestions not only based on what viewers ask directly, but also on related content they may not have even considered.
AI marks a transformative shift for the media industry
Commenting on the partnership, Uday Shankar, Vice Chairman of JioStar, said, “AI marks a transformative shift for the media and entertainment industry. It fundamentally disrupts every aspect of the value chain, from conceptualisation and production to discovery and monetisation. As a tech-native, user-first platform, JioStar is twitter-tweetding AI at the very core of the user experience. Our partnership with OpenAI will allow viewers to discover, engage with, and even curate content simply using their voice. This is a fundamental reimagining of the entertainment experience, one that anticipates culture and feels deeply personal to every viewer.”
Fidji Simo, CEO, Applications, OpenAI, said, “Traditionally, entertainment is a one-way experience where you passively consume content – AI completely changes that dynamic. Through our partnership with JioHotstar, we’re bringing personalised AI directly into entertainment and live sports, turning every moment into an opportunity for deeper engagement. Viewers can move seamlessly from
watching to asking, from curiosity to context, and from exploration to recommendation in ways that feel natural, personal, and immediately useful.”
The company further said that as India’s streaming market evolves, platforms will stand out based on their ability to immediately understand viewer intent and context. By integrating AI-led personalisation and enabling multilingual interactions at scale, it aims to deliver a more seamless, intuitive, and inclusive viewing experience.
About JioHotstar
With over 450 million average monthly users, JioHotstar is one of the leading and largest streaming platforms in the world. It has a library of over 300,000 hours of programming, with content available in 19 languages- spanning movies, originals, live sports, live events, and others.
