Pocket FM launches AI fiction-writing platform to help creators build long-form stories. ET Bureau Last Updated: Sep 19, 2026, 04:24:00 PM IST Pocket FM has launched Sherpa, an AI-powered fiction platform designed to help writers build and manage long-running stories across hundreds of episodes. The platform uses specialised AI agents and long-term narrative memory to maintain characters, relationships and storylines, as Pocket FM seeks to scale content production and help creators develop intellectual property across formats and markets. Audio entertainment platform Pocket FM has launched Sherpa, an AI-powered fiction creation platform designed to help writers develop complex, long-running stories spanning hundreds of episodes, as the company seeks to expand the capabilities of creators and scale content production. Developed by Pocket Entertainment, Sherpa combines proprietary, custom-trained AI models with hierarchical story planning, long-term narrative memory and prose generation. The platform is designed to address challenges in long-form fiction, including maintaining character consistency, tracking relationships and managing storylines across hundreds of episodes. Unlike conventional generative AI tools that respond to individual prompts, Sherpa brings together specialised agents for ideation, research, planning, writing, evaluation and narrative memory. Its Narrative World Model is designed to maintain an evolving understanding of characters, settings, conflicts and events, enabling the system to connect developments across a story's timeline. "We believe the next breakthrough in generative AI for entertainment isn't simply going to come from models that can write better sentences. It will come from systems that understand stories," said Prateek Dixit, co-founder of Pocket FM. "Narrative Intelligence means understanding the world a creator is building, reasoning about where the story could go and maintaining that understanding as the story grows, while keeping the creator in control." Sherpa approaches fiction as a hierarchy, moving from characters, themes and settings to larger narrative arcs, sequences, episodes and scenes. Its Ideation Agent develops story concepts, while the Planning Agent structures narratives and the Research Agent provides factual and contextual inputs. A prose agent generates scenes and episodes, and a Feedback Agent evaluates the output and recommends revisions. The platform's long-term memory system is designed to ensure that events occurring dozens of episodes earlier continue to influence subsequent developments. Pocket FM said the approach aims to reduce inconsistencies in character knowledge, relationships and fictional world-building. The company is developing Sherpa within Pocket Entertainment's broader content ecosystem, which it said includes more than 770,000 titles and 550,000 creators. The company also cited more than 5.5 billion hours of playtime, minute-by-minute engagement and retention data, and over 1.4 million hours of text and voice content across millions of story arcs. According to Vasu Sharma, head of AI at Pocket FM, the platform's proprietary models draw on the company's content and audience data. "This gives a single creator access to storytelling capabilities that previously required entire studios, specialised teams and massive production budgets," Sharma said. Pocket FM said annualised content production has grown 75 times to more than 2.5 million hours, alongside a tenfold increase in the number of blockbuster titles. The company said Sherpa could help creators move from initial ideas to structured fictional universes and develop intellectual property for adaptation across languages, markets and formats. Ajit Kumar, author of Brahmyodha: The Destroyer and an early Sherpa user, said the tool helped writers overcome obstacles such as false starts and difficulty sustaining creative momentum. Kumar's story had recorded 275.2 million plays on Pocket FM as of August 2026, according to the company. Read More News on

Pocket FM eyes 15%-20% EBITDA margin, global expansion with ai-led content push. Pocket FM is targeting an EBITDA margin of 15%-20%, compared with around 5% currently, as it uses AI to reduce content creation and production costs With about 90% of production now powered by AI, the startup is looking to produce more content, take its IP into new formats, and expand into additional international markets Pocket FM plans to enter Japan and South Korea over the next six to eight months and is evaluating formats such as AI anime, interactive stories, and gaming Pocket FM is betting heavily on AI to improve its content economics and lift its EBITDA margin to 15%-20% from around 5% currently, cofounder Prateek Dixit told Inc42. Dixit did not disclose a timeline for achieving the margin target. However, he said AI already powers about 90% of Pocket FM's production, while its post-production process is entirely AI-driven. Overall, AI is involved in 80%-90% of the startup's creative processes.

SEBI greenlights Kuku Technologies' INR 3,500 cr IPO. SEBI approves Kuku Technologies' IPO, which could raise up to INR 3,500 crore at a INR 15,000 crore valuation. Markets regulator SEBI has approved the proposed listing of audio OTT startup Kuku Technologies, issuing its observation letter on the company's IPO documents last Friday. Kuku filed its confidential draft red herring prospectus with SEBI in June. According to sources, the IPO could range between INR 2,500-3,500 crore (USD 261-366 million) and could value the company at approximately INR 15,000 crore (about USD 1.8 billion). The IPO will comprise a fresh issue of shares along with an offer-for-sale component. Kuku plans to use the proceeds to upgrade its technology and AI infrastructure, expand content production, and fund geographic expansion. Founded in 2018 by Lal Chand Bisu, Vikas Goyal and Vinod Meena, Kuku offers audiobooks, podcasts and original audio shows through its Kuku FM brand, alongside microdrama platform Kuku TV and microlearning platform Guru. Its content library spans more than 20,000 titles across seven languages, with over 1 crore listeners and creators and 400 million app downloads across its portfolio. Kuku has raised over USD 156 million to date from investors including Fundamentum Partnership, Krafton, Vertex Ventures, IFC and 3one4 Capital. Its most recent USD 85 million Series C round, led by Granite Asia, closed in October 2025. Earlier this year, the company onboarded former Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni as an investor and brand ambassador for Kuku TV. India's microdrama market is projected to grow to USD 6.5 billion by 2033 from USD 1.5 billion currently, with Kuku competing against Pocket FM, Flick TV, ReelSaga and Miniplix, as well as OTT majors including Amazon, JioHotstar and Zee5.