Speaking during the APOS conference’s “India Streaming: The Product View” session, JioStar executives Bharath Ram and Vijay Seshadri outlined how JioHotstar is building its product and engineering roadmap around consumer behavior, artificial intelligence and connected television.
For Bharath Ram, chief product officer of JioStar, product development begins with understanding India’s highly diverse audience base, which spans mobile-first viewers, connected TV households and premium subscribers.
“A lot of product vision starts backwards from the consumer experience,” Ram said. “The sooner you can remove yourself out of the way and give consumers the content they want to watch and the experiences they want to go through, the retention cycle kicks in automatically.”
Rather than creating separate products for different audiences, JioHotstar aims to identify common viewing behaviors while tailoring experiences where necessary. Ram noted that mobile-first users represent an active acquisition target for connected TV, with the platform using the IPL 2026 cricket tournament to accelerate that upgrade journey. “During IPL, we specifically increased a lot of mobile people to consider Connected TV,” he said.
