JioHotstar has joined forces with OpenAI to bring a ChatGPT-branded discovery experience to what is India’s most widely used streaming service, enabling its nearly half a billion monthly users to search for content through spoken or typed natural language rather than conventional menu navigation.
The partnership sees OpenAI’s technology embedded directly into the JioHotstar app, replacing keyword-driven search with an assistant capable of interpreting contextual and emotionally nuanced requests. Rather than hunting for titles manually, a viewer could describe a family situation or a personal quirk and receive tailored suggestions in response. The tool is also designed to work alongside live sports coverage, giving users a conversational way to access match information, player data, and key moments in real time.
The deal is designed to work in both directions. JioHotstar’s catalogue – which comprises over 300,000 hours of programming in 19 languages, drawn from a broadcast network of more than 100 channels as well as original and licensed content – will also be surfaced within ChatGPT itself. Users asking the chatbot for viewing suggestions will receive recommendations with direct links to relevant JioHotstar titles.
JioHotstar’s parent company is JioStar, the Indian media giant formed from the merger of Disney’s Star India and Reliance’s Viacom18.
“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,” said Uday Shankar, vice chair of JioStar. “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 of Applications at OpenAI, added: “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 personalized AI directly into entertainment and live sports, turning every moment into an opportunity for deeper engagement.”
The experience will be introduced gradually, with an initial rollout across a limited set of features before broader deployment across both on-demand and live formats.
The announcement places JioHotstar among the first major streaming platforms in India to embed a named AI assistant at the core of its product, as the country’s increasingly crowded digital entertainment market pushes services to compete on intelligence and personalization rather than library size alone.
