MUMBAI: WAVES 2025 kicked off with a compelling blend of technology and imagination, as global industry leaders placed Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the centre of creative transformation.
Held at the Jio World Centre, Mumbai, the summit’s first day featured three power-packed sessions that underlined India’s emergence as a major force in the evolving digital media and storytelling space.
“Creativity has transformed every industry.” — Shantanu Narayen, Adobe
Delivering the keynote on “Design, Media and Creativity in the Age of AI,” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen highlighted how generative AI is amplifying creativity rather than replacing it. He noted India’s growing digital consumption—over 500 million online users—and emphasized the country’s leadership in multilingual content production.
“From cinema to real-time mobile storytelling, Indian creators are breaking boundaries,” Narayen said. He outlined a four-point vision for AI-powered creative growth: boosting content production, developing new business models, cultivating skilled talent, and supporting entrepreneurship.
“AI isn’t here to replace jobs—it’s a means to an end.” — Richard Kerris, NVIDIA
In a fireside chat titled “AI Beyond Work,” NVIDIA’s Vice President Richard Kerris and India MD Vishal Dhupar explored how AI is reshaping productivity and creativity. They discussed the shift from traditional tools to AI-enhanced workflows, stressing that the technology enables faster execution of ideas while keeping human creativity at the core.
“Generative AI helps us move from idea to creation faster,” Kerris said, while cautioning that true creativity still requires understanding the fundamentals. “AI gives you the tools, but mastery still matters.”
“Bringing Stories to Life with Gen AI” — Anish Mukherjee, NVIDIA
In a masterclass session, NVIDIA’s Anish Mukherjee showcased how generative AI is revolutionizing media production. From converting images to digital humans and enabling multilingual dubbing, to AI-generated music and intelligent gaming characters—Mukherjee highlighted the real-world applications using NVIDIA’s Fugato model and Omniverse platform.
He stressed the importance of combining compute power, data, and algorithms to unlock new creative dimensions. NVIDIA’s open-source tools, such as Nemostack, were also introduced to support custom model development by creators across industries.
WAVES 2025: A Creative-Technology Convergence
As the sessions concluded, a common message echoed through the summit—AI is not a threat to creators, but a catalyst for expression. From design to gaming, India is poised to lead the AI-creative revolution by combining its rich cultural heritage with technological innovation.
WAVES 2025, organized by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has firmly established itself as a global platform where storytelling meets science, and where India leads the charge toward a digitally creative future.
