We talked to Bagawati Prasad, the CEO and Founder of Takeoff Media, about his rollercoaster of a career and his journey with AI media production.
Takeoff Media is an AI-powered media production studio based in Chennai, which launched in 2024. They create AI influencers, make ad campaigns, and do long-term branding videos for a variety of industries. They have worked with 20+ brands so far, across 10+ industries, making hyper-realistic ads. Takeoff Media builds avatars for brands and virtual influencers as well. They created AI influencers called Rasika & Rithika, which other brands are now interested in using as models for their campaigns.
They also have a one-of-its-kind self-learning course called the A-Z AI Literacy Certification Program. It contains 100 self-learning AI videos, all totalling less than 100 minutes! Bagawati says, “We started this program because most people, even though they’re aware of AI, are unaware of how to use it properly. With this course, you get full access for a year and can refer to the videos whenever you have doubts. AI is not just about writing a prompt and waiting for the results; it’s about consistent practice and trial and error. That’s how you get the hang of it. We wanted to design a course with snackable, short-form content, where you get a certificate at the end of it.”
Bagawati talks about his career as a corporate-turned-sports journalist-turned cricket commentator-turned entrepreneur, “I worked at HP, and then at Accenture. Throughout my corporate years, however, my mind was always on sports; I was especially fascinated by cricket, which I played in school and college. My uncle used to help me train for hours every day. I wrote blogs about the sport, and my dream since I was 9 was to become a cricket commentator. During my stint at Accenture, my friend told me there was an opening at Deccan Chronicle, so I applied to be a sports journalist, and I got in! I used to report on cricket, volleyball, athletics, and all sorts of sports events like IPL and Asian Athletics Championships. I eventually moved to The Times of India, where I was Senior Correspondent, and then to Sportskeeda, a digital medium for sports coverage in Bangalore. Little did I know, my commentator dreams were about to come true. I applied for the “MicUpForTNPL” contest by Star Sports Tamil in 2018 and was one of the winners of the contest. I did commentary for a few games in the Tamil Nadu Premier League.”
He signed a contract with Prodian Infotech, the digital partners for CSK, as a consultant for the Chennai Super Kings. Later, in 2023, he was selected by Jio to be a Tamil commentator for their cricket & sports broadcast. Every night, he was a broadcaster, but he realised he had the entire day to himself. That’s how Takeoff Media came into being. He was already doing production and direction, so he figured, why not set up a full-fledged brand? The twist? He wanted it to be AI-driven.
Takeoff Media created Ritika, an AI influencer, who promotes lifestyle content
“I wasn’t here to reinvent technology; I was just trying to innovate and maximise AI’s prospects,” Bagawati states. “I wanted to see how to add an AI layer to traditional video production. I spent 6-7 months on a self-learning journey, learning everything I could about AI before starting Takeoff Media with my co-founders and mentors, PR Rajendran and Radesh Rangarajan. They have years of experience in gaming and help businesses scale up from scratch, both practically and strategically. They saw my vision, and I’m so grateful they decided to guide me.”
When people think of AI videos, they assume it’s easy—all you have to do is insert a prompt. How hard can it be? “Most people don’t understand that, when you’re working with a brand, the professionalism involved is vastly different. The creative direction, the production value, all of them play a huge part. Our team members have worked (individually) in movies and ads, so we coupled their expertise with existing AI tools to come up with top-quality output. It wasn’t and still isn’t easy to tell people the value and potential AI has,” he explains.
Bagawati, along with running Takeoff, is also a Tamil cricket commentator
When talking about AI-related misconceptions, he mentions, “The general perception is that AI is doing the work for you. While it is doing your work, you have to control the input to get the right output, or it’s going to backfire. With a mediocre, incomplete prompt, you will only receive a 60% accurate output, with the other 40% being hallucination on the AI’s part. People also need to see how cost-effective AI is. It saves costs on locations, set design, camera crew, actors, props, everything. It’s all engineered in a system. However, it’s important to understand that there is a lot of scope for traditional media and AI to marry and walk together, which is what we pitch to clients based on their requirements. Sometimes, you need a traditional shoot, which we then enhance with AI in post-production.”
It took the Takeoff team close to a year to build their portfolio to prove to brands that they had an edge. “Everyone has a cricket bat and ball, but you need to possess that X-factor. It’s a level playing field until you find what makes you stand out in terms of creativity and execution,” Bagawati says.
The way Takeoff Media works is by working in teams for each project they take on. The creative team builds a moodboard and script, which then goes to the engineering team. The output is passed on to the quality checking team, which has the most challenging job of all. “Quality assurance is non-negotiable in this field. For example, if you want an 8-second clip of someone walking, the first 4-5 seconds of the output will be fine, but in the sixth second, what if his/her head rotates? Sometimes the person has 3 hands. Every frame when using AI is critical, or the client is going to be in shock,” Bagawati laughs. “Once the video has been quality checked, it goes into post-production, editing and another round of quality check.”
An AI ad campaign for Crystal
On the topic of being motivated, he speaks candidly. “Being an entrepreneur, it’s how you enjoy the learning curve. You have to adapt to the pace at which the world is evolving. For me, going from a corporate job to a print reporter to working in digital media to becoming a cricket commentator to working with AI now, I have had a chance to upskill myself constantly. We are also in a position where we can help people by building their brand identity, which is thrilling. AI has taught me a lot about patience. We once spent a week just working on and perfecting one single photo, and that was a true lesson in endurance. In work and in life, you have to stay calm, think clearly, and find a solution, without focusing too much on the problem. Go day by day, don’t try to solve everything at once. I like taking every problem as a healthy challenge; something that helps me grow. To top it all off, I am lucky enough to have the most supportive family—my wife, father, and brother have always been my biggest advocates,” he concludes.
The Takeoff Media team
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