Artificial intelligence could add Rs 75,000 crore to India’s GDP and create over 3.6 lakh creative jobs by 2035, said Gunjan Soni, country managing director, YouTube, at the CII Big Picture Summit. She noted that YouTube’s creative ecosystem contributed over Rs 18,000 crore to GDP and supported 960,000 full-time equivalent jobs in 2025, with seven-figure earners rising 20% and over 200,000 channels earning their first revenue.
Soni said India has outgrown the image of the hobbyist creator. Today’s creators, she said, are directors, actors and producers rolled into one, building studios, running payrolls and owning intellectual property. Creators also supported more than three lakh apprentices, with clusters in Jaipur, Lucknow and Kochi offering local training and work.
Indian content is travelling far beyond home. Soni said 15% of watch time for India-produced content comes from overseas, with connected TV emerging as the fastest-growing canvas. On AI, she cited a Public First and Google report showing a 20% productivity boost, saving nearly 400 hours a year, and said multi-language audio could lift Hindi creators’ reach by 280%, while stressing that technology will support, not replace, human imagination.
Soni outlined three priorities: treat creator-led ventures as real businesses, adopt AI as a core creative tool, and export Indian content more aggressively. She called for capital, infrastructure and policy support, and said YouTube will soon release a whitepaper on the subject.
