Terra Invest.
Terra Invest's founding partner says generative technology could give independent storytellers the tools to create enduring, interactive franchises.
The next major entertainment franchise may be created outside the traditional studio system, as artificial intelligence gives individual storytellers new ways to build and sustain fictional universes, according to Ankiti Bose, founding partner of Terra Invest.
In a commentary published by the investment firm, Bose describes a future in which a story no longer ends when a film finishes. Audiences could return to its setting through interactive experiences, encounter familiar characters and share a common world with other participants.
Bose argues that the critical challenge is not simply producing convincing images or scenes. A lasting digital universe must preserve continuity: characters should retain the history of encounters, objects should remain consistent, and decisions should carry consequences.
She points to Google DeepMind's Genie 3 demonstration, announced in August 2025, as an early indication of progress. The system generated navigable environments at 720p and 24 frames per second, maintaining consistency for several minutes. Creating a persistent fictional universe, however, would require substantially more.
In Bose's view, generative systems would need to work alongside dependable records of a world's characters, events and rules. Creators would still decide which parts of a narrative are fixed and which can evolve through audience participation.
Bose also challenges the idea that personalised entertainment will replace shared culture. Audiences still want common characters, milestones and stories to discuss. Successful AI-enabled franchises may therefore combine individual exploration with a stable narrative foundation that communities can recognise together.
The shift could open new possibilities for storytellers across the Middle East, whose distinct languages, settings and cultural histories offer material for original global franchises. AI-assisted translation and dubbing could make these stories more accessible internationally without requiring creators to dilute their local identities. Bose cites the rollout of YouTube's auto-dubbing tools in December 2024 as an example of this direction.
Her central prediction is that the next generation of entertainment businesses may compete not only on what audiences watch, but on the depth of the worlds they can enter, revisit and experience together.
Terra Invest (Terra Vision Investments LLC) is a global investment firm working across AI, financial services, healthcare, green energy and infrastructure in India and the Middle East. It has offices in London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Miami and Singapore. More at terra-invest.com/insights.
