An Exclusive Interaction with CloudTV’s COO and Co-Founder, Abhijeet Rajpurohit on AI, Cloud Gaming, and the 8 Million Device Milestone

CloudTV – a homegrown Indian Smart TV operating system – has steadily expanded its presence in the Indian smart TV market, which is now powering over 8 million devices across the country. In an exclusive interaction with The Tech Outlook, Abhijeet Rajpurohit (COO and Co-Founder of Cloud TV) spoke about CloudTV’s evolving strategy, the future of cloud gaming, and the platform’s mission to transform the television into an immersive smart home companion.

Q: You’ve mentioned that CloudTV was built to cater specifically to Indian consumers. In 2026, with the rise of 5G and diverse regional languages, how is the OS evolving to make content discovery more intuitive for a non-tech-savvy user in a Tier-2 or Tier-3 city? 

We’ve built CloudTV around one simple idea: the less you have to search, the better the experience. Our personalized recommendations mean that relevant content surfaces before you even go looking for it. Deep integrations with content partners ensure that “continue watching” picks from all your favourite apps live right on the home screen. And we recognise that not every Indian viewer is an OTT power user – which is why we’ve also built in FAST TV for audiences who prefer the familiar rhythm of linear television. Even our universal search pulls results across on-demand, live TV, YouTube, and the app store simultaneously. One search bar, everything you need.

Q: With the launch of CloudTV Ads, how do you ensure that the integration of programmatic advertising doesn’t disrupt the ‘lean-back’ viewing experience that consumers love?

We think about advertising in two distinct contexts, and that distinction is everything. On the home screen, ads should aid discovery – not interrupt it. They’re relevant, visually engaging, and they appear before a viewer has committed to content. Critically, users always have the option to move past them – we never hold the experience hostage to an ad. The second context is our FAST channels – Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television – where advertising is simply part of the format, just as it has always been in traditional broadcast. Viewers get free, quality content. Brands get genuinely engaged audiences. It’s a model that Indians already understand intuitively, and we’re making it smarter with programmatic delivery.

Q: We’ve seen the rollout of CloudTV 3.0 which now serves over 6 million devices. What is the ‘hero feature’ of the next version that will make consumers choose a CloudTV-powered set over a global competitor?

We now power over 8 million households across India – and we’re just getting started. But the number isn’t the story. The story is what we’re actually solving: making the smart TV transition seamless, affordable, and genuinely built for Indian consumers. Global players have largely ignored the complexity of this market. We haven’t. Smart TVs are becoming living room utilities, and CloudTV is the infrastructure making that shift possible for everyday Indian homes.

Q: Given your personal interest in gaming and the industry’s shift toward ‘Physical AI’ and robotics (like your partners at ASUS), do you see CloudTV expanding into Cloud Gaming or Smart Home Hub capabilities in the near future?

Entertainment accessibility is our north star – and gaming is a central part of that mission. We already work closely with multiple gaming partners whose titles are available on our app store, and the response from Indian audiences has been tremendous. We’ll continue to invest in technologies that bring gaming deeper into Indian homes. The living room is the next great gaming frontier in this country, and we intend to be at the centre of it.

Q: You currently support over 250 Smart TV brands. Are there any new high-end or ‘value-flagship’ brand partnerships in the pipeline for 2026 that will bring CloudTV OS to a more premium segment of the market?

We’re actively working across market segments – not just to launch an OS, but to help brands bring their own native strengths to their customers through our platform. It’s a more collaborative model than what’s typically seen in this space. We have some exciting announcements coming, and I’ll leave it at that for now.

Q: As a ‘Made-in-India’ OS, how are you working with your 25+ local manufacturing partners to lower the cost of hardware for the end consumer without compromising on the software performance (benchmarks)?

Our philosophy has always been that great technology should be accessible, not just aspirational. And the good news is that the market is maturing in our favour – good technology is becoming more affordable, and affordable technology is getting meaningfully better. We also invest heavily in optimising our core software to run efficiently on lower-spec hardware, so the experience doesn’t suffer just because the price point is accessible. That balance is something we’re genuinely proud of.

Q: As a gamer yourself, you know that nothing ruins an experience like input lag. With CloudTV OS powering affordable hardware, how are you optimizing the kernel and UI performance to ensure that cloud gaming or even basic Android-based TV games feel responsive on budget-friendly chipsets?

Performance optimization is a shared responsibility between our software teams and our hardware partners – and we take it seriously. That said, the honest answer is that the hardware spec will always play a role in determining which titles run natively and how well. Our job is to extract the best possible experience from whatever hardware our partners bring to market, and we’re constantly pushing that ceiling higher.

Q: The global trend is moving toward Cloud Gaming (gaming without a console). Is CloudTV currently in talks with platforms like NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming, or Indian startups to bring AAA gaming titles directly to the ‘Made-in-India’ TV screens without needing extra hardware?

Cloud gaming is a high priority for us in 2026, and we’re in active conversations with multiple platforms to build experiences specifically designed for the Indian market – accounting for real-world constraints like internet speeds, ping rates, and hardware diversity. We’re confident this is a question of when, not if. The pieces are coming together, and when we’re ready to announce, it’ll be significant.

Q: Abhijeet, you’ve moved from being a tech enthusiast experimenting with gadgets to building an OS that powers millions of Indian homes. In five years, when an Indian consumer turns on their Smart TV, what is the one thing they will be able to do via CloudTV that they can’t even imagine today?

We are living through the founding years of a new smart TV era. The form factor, the input methods, the browsing behaviour – all of it is shifting dramatically. With the leap we’re taking in AI, the TV is evolving from a passive screen into an active presence in the home. Users are already beginning to rely on their TVs for far more than content consumption. What we’re moving toward is the TV as the most immersive AI agent in the living room – enabling richer experiences in shopping, social connection, and information access that go well beyond entertainment. The remote control was just the beginning.