Jio Mobile Digital Services Hires Ex-Disney+ Hotstar Head As President

Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL’s) digital giant Jio Platforms has roped in former Disney+ Hotstar head Sajith Sivanandan as the president of Jio Mobile Digital Services.

With this appointment, Sivanandan is expected to build AI-based digital services for Jio Mobile.

Prior to this, he served as the chief executive officer (CEO) at Disney+ Hotstar for 2 years. 

Besides, Sivanandan’s portfolio includes tech giant Google, where he served at various leadership positions including managing director for Google Malaysia, business head for India and Asia Pacific. His 15 years of tenure at Google ended in 2022.

This appointment comes at a time when Reliance Jio has been bullish on expanding its tech offerings by leveraging AI and Web3.

For instance, a few days back, Jio partnered with Sandeep Nailwal-led Polygon Labs to bring Web3 capabilities to some of its existing applications and services.

Talking on the AI front, last year, Jio rolled out ‘Jio Phone Call AI’, facilitating users to record and save any phone call on the Jio Cloud. Additionally, the feature enables users to transcribe speech into text and translate them across multiple languages.

Back then, the tech giant also announced that it is developing an AI service platform called Jio Brain, which will be a comprehensive suite of AI platforms and tools. Currently, the platform is in the testing stage.

Last month, Jio also submitted a bid to the electronics and IT ministry (MeitY) to provide artificial intelligence (AI) compute and cloud services under the INR 10,738 Cr IndiaAI Mission. Besides Jio, several service providers including Tata Communications, Sify Digital Services, Yotta, CMS Computers India, among others also submitted the bids.  

In October 2024, Jio’s parent Reliance announced partnership with US-based AI chip giant NVIDIA to build AI infrastructure in India.