Vijay Subramaniam on AI, Anurag Kashyap & Stardom | The Titans | THR India

Anupama Chopra interviews Vijay Subramaniam, Founder and Group CEO of Collective Artists Network, for The Hollywood Reporter India's The Titans series. Vijay discusses how Collective manages over 400 artists and millions of creators, while simultaneously pioneering AI storytelling through Collective Studios and its Historyverse slate — which includes the AI series Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh on JioHotstar, the upcoming theatrical film Chiranjeevi Hanuman – The Eternal, and AI-generated content across music, influencers, and digital doubles. Anupama pushes Vijay on the tension between creating AI stars and representing real ones, the Raanjhanaa AI-altered ending controversy, and Anurag Kashyap's public criticism of his AI ventures. Vijay makes the case that AI is a tool for creators, not a replacement — pointing to the 130-person crew behind Mahabharat, directors like Hansal Mehta and Rajesh Mapuskar choosing to work with AI, and the fundamental limitations of current technology in capturing human emotion and physics. He also addresses the crisis in Hindi cinema's mid-tier, argues that writers need profit-sharing to incentivize great storytelling, and reveals Collective's strategy of backing emerging talent through low-budget productions, the Terribly Tiny Tales acquisition, and the Gruhas Collective Consumer Fund with Nikhil Kamath. Vijay positions Collective as the Reliance of the creator ecosystem — omnipresent across every facet of a creator's career.