How necessity, not hype, birthed Liqvd Asia's AI-led studio model

When Liqvd Asia unveiled AiKonic on 16 October 2025, it wasn’t simply adding another service line; it was signalling how the digital advertising agency envisions the next phase of content production, where artificial intelligence doesn’t just assist creativity but becomes its core engine.

The new studio-services business, headquartered in Mumbai, makes AI the structural spine of storytelling. It also marks Liqvd Asia’s first fully AI-led content setup, with plans to replicate the model in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru. For founder Arnab Mitra, the move is less about chasing hype and more about addressing a growing operational reality.

“Clients want more content, faster, and cheaper. The traditional setup just can’t keep up,” Mitra told Campaign. He added that AiKonic was born out of necessity, not hype.

“We’ve cut turnaround times by 40% and costs by about 30%. The best part? Our teams are still doing the same amount of creative thinking—just producing three times more work in the same cycle,” Mitra stated.

Why AI, and why now

AI’s expanding role in advertising is being viewed as both a creative renaissance and an existential test for agencies. Around the world, creative shops are overhauling production workflows with automation to meet mounting content demands.

For Liqvd Asia, the business case was simple. Mitra revealed that it didn’t build AiKonic to replace people; but to build it to make people superhuman.

The studio currently operates through dedicated shoot zones at Liqvd’s Mumbai headquarters, with standalone facilities to follow. The choice of Mumbai was deliberate. It’s the agency’s creative hub, home to its largest client base and India’s most evolved production ecosystem. Delhi-NCR will follow for its stronghold in lifestyle and D2C marketing, while Bengaluru is next for its tech and startup-driven storytelling demand.

“We’re not scaling for geography,” Mitra said. “We’re scaling where content hunger and client budgets are peaking. Local delivery at scale is our goal.”

Building the AI studio model

AiKonic’s ambition mirrors a global shift, as studios blend AI engineering with creative production. Yet Liqvd Asia’s focus diverges from its Western counterparts.

While Los Angeles-based Wonder Studios, backed by OpenAI and Google DeepMind executives, uses AI for cinematic storytelling, AiKonic is rooted in commercial creativity: brand films, digital explainers, and multilingual performance content.

Wonder Studios recently raised $12 million in seed funding to expand its production amid a growing trend toward use of AI in the entertainment industry. “It is doing phenomenal work, which it’s Hollywood-grade AI,” Mitra acknowledged. “But they’re solving film problems. We’re solving brand problems. They make superheroes fly; we make brands move—faster, cheaper, and in twelve languages if needed.”

Rather than using off-the-shelf AI trained on generic datasets, AiKonic builds brand-style intelligence by training on client-specific materials, including licensed visuals, campaign assets, and tone-of-voice systems. “The goal isn’t generic beauty; it’s brand-specific intelligence—AI that understands how each client looks, feels, and sounds,” he added.

Rewiring the creative process

AiKonic’s introduction represents not just an operational upgrade but a creative shift. Vishal Chavan, creative producer at Liqvd Asia, called it “a space where innovation meets imagination, unlocking opportunities for storytellers to push boundaries.”

Sunil Gangras, creative head, described it as a structural evolution. “Today’s creative work demands flexibility, engagement and scale,” he said. “By weaving AI into production, we’re enabling creators to craft work that resonates deeply and reaches further.”

Automation now handles repetitive functions—resizing, compliance checks, and language adaptation—freeing creators to focus on narrative and tone. In categories like fashion, retail and quick commerce, that speed translates directly to business outcomes.

“AI filmmaking isn’t about pretty visuals,” Mitra said. “It’s about using film as a tool for problem-solving. Brands today need clarity and agility, not just spectacle.”

Owning what you create

Early pilots across D2C, BFSI, and kitchenware brands suggest that AiKonic’s promise of efficiency holds. Turnaround times have dropped from 10 days to 4, while production costs are down roughly 25%. Output has tripled, with no proportional rise in headcount.

For Mitra, the numbers validate the model’s sustainability in a market defined by shrinking timelines and budgets. “You can’t keep asking people to do more with less,” he said. “AI bridges that gap by taking over mechanical tasks and letting humans focus on what they do best—strategy and emotion.”

Globally, AI-driven studios are shifting from production work to intellectual property (IP) creation. Wonder Studios recently raised $12 million in seed funding led by Atomico to expand its engineering team and push into IP-driven entertainment.

Liqvd Asia has similar ambitions. “Every studio eventually wants to own what it makes,” Mitra said. “We’ve already begun work on branded talk formats and creator-led series, some of which we’ll co-produce with partners. For now, funding is internal—but once we see which formats have legs, we’ll scale.”

This builds on Liqvd’s earlier experience producing ‘The Good Vibes’, India’s first 100% brand-funded web series in 2019, which won in the branded content category at the Abbys. “The business model is simple,” Mitra said. “Create once, sell thrice—to brands, to platforms, and to ourselves.”

Evolution of agentic systems

AiKonic’s roadmap includes the next evolution of automation—from agentic systems, where AI autonomously manages brand tone, legal compliance, and platform-specific formats in real time.

“Imagine AI that checks compliance while you’re still sipping your coffee,” Mitra said. “Automation can catch errors, but only humans can catch emotion.”

This hybrid view, where machines for precision, humans for persuasion, is increasingly defining the global conversation around creativity and AI. “The future of creativity isn’t AI versus people,” Mitra added. “It’s AI with people.”

The timing of AiKonic’s launch aligns with an acceleration in AI-led creativity worldwide. As AI processing scales exponentially. Google recently reported a surge from 9.7 trillion tokens a month in 2024 to 1.3 quadrillion by October 2025. Creative industries are wrestling with new cost curves, ROI models, and data-ethics frameworks.

For India’s marketing economy, where content volumes are massive but margins are thin, Liqvd Asia’s utility-first approach could serve as a pragmatic model: use AI to make creativity scalable without losing its local nuance.

AiKonic’s arrival also marks a cultural inflection point for Indian advertising. AI is no longer viewed as a novelty but as a practical collaborator. For agencies handling hundreds of deliverables in real time, the question isn’t whether to use AI—it’s how intelligently it’s deployed.

“Agencies that treat AI as a co-worker will thrive,” Mitra said. “Those that treat it like a threat will fade.”

While global studios often present themselves as technology-first, Liqvd Asia stresses its storytelling-first ethos. “Most AI today is trained for accuracy, not empathy,” Mitra noted. “We’re building systems that understand the subtleties of how brands speak to people. It’s less about perfect pictures and more about meaningful connections.”

That human dimension, he believes, will separate distinctive creative output from algorithmic sameness.

Rehumanising creativity

Despite its tech-driven infrastructure, AiKonic’s philosophy remains anchored in human creativity. “AI can write copy or render visuals, but it can’t feel irony or joy,” Mitra said. “That’s what makes creative professionals invaluable. AI doesn’t reduce the need for them. It raises the bar for what they can do.”

The agency has begun upskilling its teams into AI-native creatives—professionals who understand not just concept and craft, but how to shape prompts, train datasets and interpret machine outputs. “It’s not about teaching people to code,” Mitra said. “It’s about teaching them to converse with intelligence.”

AiKonic’s early momentum suggests AI’s integration into creative workflows is not a distant possibility but a live experiment. Its real test will lie in converting technological potential into sustained creative differentiation.

As Mitra put it, “The future of creativity belongs to those who can make technology emotional and storytelling intelligent. That’s the sweet spot we’re chasing.”

In an industry still grappling with how much of art can—or should—be automated, AiKonic offers a grounded proposition: machines can scale imagination, but meaning still needs a human hand.

For now, Liqvd Asia’s bet is clear. The next revolution in advertising won’t come from who has the smartest tech, but from who uses it most humanly.