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Creators are using AI tools to bring historical figures into the modern era—speaking in everyday slang, joking about steroids, or even pitching businesses on a fictional ‘Mughal Shark Tank.’
“I started my page just two weeks back, as an experiment to blend AI with history,” said Rahul S. Nair, creator of the Instagram page Katha.Ai, which now has over 122,000 followers. “I didn’t expect that these videos will be received so well, especially by the Union Public Service Commission and government exam aspirants who now have an opportunity to brush up their concepts even while using social media.”
Nair, an Indian architect based in London, is a history buff leveraging AI to make learning fun.
He explains that the key lies in using relatable language.
“When analysing the algorithm, I’ve noticed that in India, short-form content primarily targets audiences in their 20s and 30s. To engage this demographic, it’s crucial to use a specific style of language and slang,” Nair said. “The trick is to share facts in a fun and engaging way. Picture a historical figure acting like they belong in today’s world, that surprise factor really helps people remember better.”
Key Takeaways
- AI-generated short videos featuring historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi or Shah Jahan are going viral on Instagram, particularly among Gen Z and exam aspirants.
- These videos mimic influencer formats, use Gen Z slang, and aim to make history more engaging and relatable.
- Creators like Rahul Nair and Shubham Kolgane blend AI tools with storytelling but face technical and copyright hurdles in recreating avatars and syncing dialogues.
- While they serve as entertaining learning aids, experts say they’re not yet suited for deep or formal academic purposes.
- Despite viral reach, creators are yet to see consistent income from brand deals, though some have started selling AI tutorial courses and exploring partnerships.
Hard work
Creating these videos, however, is far from easy. Due to copyright limitations, AI-generated likenesses of historical figures must be approximated, not replicated. “Due to copyright restrictions, using actual images of historical figures is often impossible… The real challenge, then, is to generate a close likeness using AI prompts and then accurately sync the lip movements to the script. This intricate process can take over 12 hours for just an 8-16 second reel,” Nair said.
Tushar Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson, sees merit in the approach but warns against trivialisation. “There are plus and minus points to this trend. It may make Bapu more believable to the younger generation, but there is a likelihood of oversimplification and trivialisation of the ideology,” he said.
Education experts echo this sentiment. Narayanan Ramaswamy, partner and head of the education and skill development practice at KPMG in India, said such content is ideal for sparking curiosity but lacks academic depth.
“While excellent for casual learning of historical trivia, these concise and entertaining videos cater to diminishing attention spans… Still, for now, this content remains better suited for casual engagement than formal education,” he said.
Monetising the trend
Meanwhile, creators are exploring ways to monetise the trend. Shubham Kolgane, a 23-year-old freelancer from Parbhani, started with an AI-generated monkey video on 20 June. It saw modest engagement, but his pivot to historical reels paid off—his Mahatma Gandhi Salt March video garnered nearly two million views.
“People are curious to learn how to create viral videos like these, and I have been selling a tutorial course about how to generate prompts on ChatGPT that help them make such videos on Gemini Veo 3. In two weeks, I’ve sold the one-and-a-half minute video to 10 people for ₹99,” Kolgane shared.
Others like Shikhar Srivastava, a software professional in Noida, are seeing rising follower counts but no revenue yet. “Currently, I am not making any money from this… I am planning to launch AI courses and seek brand collaborations,” said Srivastava, who runs historyvideo.ai and has over 15,000 followers.
Experts believe the trend has commercial potential—if it scales.
“In the past month, we’ve seen a rise in AI-generated history content, yet no brands have actively engaged with it,” said Praanesh Bhuvaneswar, cofounder of marketing agency Qoruz.
“For these history AI pages to truly become a viable subcategory… we’ll need to see their numbers grow to at least 20-30,” he said. “Currently, AI content pages in other niches charge around ₹20,000 per collaboration… we anticipate a rapid proliferation of these history-focused pages, leading to increased competition and potentially lower collaboration costs.”
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