CEF founder Supriya Suri discusses the realities of India’s booming creator economy — from concentrated wealth and AI-driven storytelling to structural inequalities shaping access and success.
Supriya Suri occupies a distinct position at the intersection of cinema, cultural infrastructure, and policy. Trained in Paris at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français under the Égide Scholarship, she has produced documentary and feature films through Maison Su Entertainment, while simultaneously shaping India’s film culture as President of Cinedarbaar. From co-founding Indian Auteur to running the influential 13BCD cinema gallery in New Delhi, her work has consistently bridged practice, criticism, and curation.
Since founding the Creative Economy Forum (CEF) in 2023, Suri has extended that engagement into the wider creative economy — positioning it not merely as a cultural shift, but as a site of policy, investment, and structural debate. As institutional interest grows, from national budgets to global AI summits, her work focuses on urgent questions of access, equity, and ownership within this expanding ecosystem.
In this conversation with Homegrown, Suri unpacks the tensions between widening participation and concentrated power, where visibility and wealth remain unevenly distributed. She reflects on AI as both an enabler and a challenge to authorship, draws attention to ethical concerns around vernacular data and consent, and points to persistent structural barriers — from capital to social inequities.
What emerges is a grounded view of a sector in transition: expansive in ambition, but still negotiating the terms of who it truly serves.
Who is benefiting from the rapid expansion of India’s creator economy? Does the available data suggest wealth and visibility are concentrating among a small group of creators and platforms, or is there equitable distribution of opportunity across independent and regional creators?
The recent 2026 budget focuses on the orange economy and the expansion of the creative sector, including investments in skilling and infrastructure, which is helping broaden access to the creator ecosystem in India. These initiatives can support independent and regional creators by providing opportunities that were previously harder to access.
However, when we look at who benefits today, wealth and visibility remain largely concentrated among established creators with scale, audience, and brand access. This is not unique to the creator economy; it’s seen across creative verticals.
That said, increased access through policy support, platforms, and initiatives like WAVES, budgets, and the recent AI-Summit is enabling more creators, including regional voices, to participate and grow.
It’s also important to note that equitable distribution of opportunity does not necessarily mean equal outcomes. The ecosystem can become more inclusive in access and participation, while success and earnings may still be uneven. The key is ensuring that a wider base of creators has a fair chance to build visibility and sustainable careers.
Many creators are now using AI tools for scripting, editing, and content production. What does AI-augmented storytelling look like today, and how do we distinguish it from content that is simply faster to produce and optimized for engagement?
AI tools are revolutionizing the creative industry by reducing reliance on technical skills, enabling faster, more efficient content creation, and replacing routine tasks. Human elements — voice, perspective, emotional depth — are essential for compelling storytelling and cannot be replicated by AI. AI acts as an enabler, helping creators express ideas more effectively while accelerating processes. Unlike content driven solely by engagement, AI-assisted storytelling relies on individuality, authenticity, and lived experiences. AI executes the vision, but the direction and meaning are shaped by the creator, maintaining the story’s uniqueness. Fast, optimized content can be copied and tends toward uniformity unless individuality and emotion are added. Ultimately, AI enhances storytelling by supporting creators’ authenticity and distinctiveness.
India’s vernacular diversity is often described as a key advantage for the creator economy. How is CEF addressing concerns that vernacular AI models are trained on community language and cultural data without meaningful consent or participation from those communities?
India’s linguistic diversity enriches the creator economy but raises questions about ownership, consent, and fair use, especially regarding AI training. At CEF, we believe that creator rights and informed consent are essential for the use of cultural data. AI models shouldn’t be trained on community content without permissions, transparency, and fair pay. While voluntary licensing exists, it needs broader adoption, especially for regional and independent creators. Vernacular content presents challenges due to fragmentation and unclear ownership, requiring a collaborative approach. CEF promotes shared frameworks for creators, AI firms, policymakers, and cultural institutions to ensure AI innovation aligns with accountability and fairness.
The language of “inclusive storytelling” appears frequently in discussions of the creator economy. What structural barriers — such as platform algorithms, access to capital, and entrenched caste or gender hierarchies — does CEF believe still shape who gets to participate and succeed?
The ovarian lottery — the random chance of where and when you’re born — shapes access to wealth, opportunities, and advantages, highlighting how structural inequalities determine who gets them. These patterns persist across sectors, including the creator economy. In this space, entry barriers are lower than in traditional industries — content creation often requires only a mobile device, unlike fields that require heavy investment. Yet equal success isn’t guaranteed, though there are opportunities for creators to build global audiences using local languages and culture. Structural barriers such as awareness and skills gaps remain, especially for underrepresented groups facing funding, literacy, and network challenges. Success relies on talent and the ability to monetize, market, and engage audiences, with support like training, mentorship, and tools to broaden reach. Creativity rooted in local heritage offers a unique global perspective rather than losing it.
If you had to name one assumption from CEF 2025 that you’d want to pressure-test at the next edition, what would it be?
CEF has been exploring how the creative economy can develop into a more organized and sustainable ecosystem. Building on that, one area that could be further studied is how financial systems can better support creative professionals and businesses.
While there is growing optimism about the sector’s growth, many creative careers are still driven more by passion than by business. They often invest years with uncertain returns.
This raises an important question: can access to finance for the creative sector be more formalized? For example, can there be more structured options, such as loans for creative projects, expanded grants, or increased participation from government and institutional investors?
The goal is to focus on long-term sustainability and to ensure that creative talent and businesses are supported and empowered by financial and institutional systems that enable them to build and grow.
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