Google Gemini Joins Amitabh Bachchan's Iconic Indian Game Show

Google and Sony Pictures Networks India have announced a partnership that will bring the Gemini assistant to the new season of Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, hosted for two decades by actor Amitabh Bachchan. It is one of the first large-scale integrations of a major language model into a global entertainment format in Asia.

How the integration works

Gemini is meant to act as a digital guide accompanying viewers and contestants at every stage of their engagement with the show. It starts with registration: in the Gemini app, users can already ask about the requirements and criteria for applying to KBC and receive step-by-step instructions. In the next phase, Google plans to launch interactive quiz challenges designed to help viewers prepare for the show by testing general knowledge across various subjects.

The assistant is also set to be woven directly into the show's content itself, though neither company has yet disclosed technical details of this integration or whether Gemini will appear on screen during episodes or function solely as a companion tool in the app and on a second screen.

A show with history

Kaun Banega Crorepati, the local adaptation of the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire format, has aired in India since 2000 and has been broadcast by Sony Entertainment Television since 2010. The new season will be the seventeenth with Amitabh Bachchan as host; the actor has led the show for years and is one of the most recognizable faces on Indian television. Registration for the new season has just opened.

The scale of KBC's audience in India is enormous. The show has for years ranked among the most-watched formats in a country of more than 1.4 billion people, and the annual premiere of a new season is a media event comparable to the release of major films.

Why it matters for Google

For Google, the KBC integration is a way to bring Gemini to a mass, not necessarily tech-savvy audience in the world's most populous country. India is one of Google's key growth markets, the place where the company tests cheap subscription plans, local model variants, and integrations with popular apps. Embedding an AI assistant in a recognizable, family-friendly TV format is meant to normalize the use of Gemini beyond people who work in technology.

It is also part of a broader rivalry between Google and OpenAI for users in emerging markets, where the number of people encountering AI tools for the first time is still growing faster than in Europe or North America. A marketing presence on a show watched by tens of millions of viewers weekly gives Gemini a level of recognition that would be hard to achieve through digital advertising alone.

What's next

Google and Sony have not yet announced a premiere date for the new season or a detailed rollout schedule for further Gemini features on the show. The companies have said, however, that interactive quiz challenges will appear in the Gemini app in the coming weeks, with the integration set to expand alongside the season's episodes.

For Polish readers, this is above all a signal of where the presence of AI assistants in popular culture outside Europe and the United States is headed, and how major tech companies are treating local, mass-market entertainment formats, not just apps and browsers, as a channel for reaching new users.

Sources: Variety (variety.com).