Indian audio platform Pocket FM has doubled its annualized revenue run rate to $500 million as artificial intelligence becomes central to its production engine. According to co-founder and CEO Rohan Nayak, AI now supports 93% of the company's catalog and generates 99% of new content.
Founded in 2018 as a serialized audio storytelling service, Pocket FM still relies on human creators for original ideas and narrative direction. AI is then used to scale those concepts into finished episodes, with the company building proprietary tools for creative writing and text-to-speech based on years of listener behavior and production data.
The impact on speed and cost has been significant. Nayak said content production is now about 80 times cheaper, and a 100-hour slate that once took nearly a year can now be completed in a single day. The platform's creator network has grown to more than 550,000, producing roughly 2.5 million hours of AI-assisted content each year.
Pocket FM's library now includes more than 770,000 audio series, helping the company broaden its audience across more than 20 countries. It has over 250 million listeners, with the U.S. emerging as its largest market and contributing about 70% of the annualized revenue run rate. Revenue retention over 12 months has also improved to 76%, up from 44% two years ago.
The company is also extending its model beyond audio. Its microdrama app, Pocket Saga, has reached an annualized revenue run rate of about $15 million and currently uses AI for all of its content. Pocket Entertainment plans to add at least two more entertainment formats over the next five years and eventually adapt successful stories into books, television, and films through licensing.
With AI and storytelling moving closer together, Pocket FM is shaping a new production model for digital entertainment that could influence how global content is created, scaled, and experienced in the years ahead.
