Gandhi vlogs, Mughal Shark Tank give history an AI twist

Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, sees merit in the approach but warns against trivialization

- Pratishtha Bagai

From Mahatma Gandhi vlogging his Salt March to Shah Jahan offering a quirky home tour of the Red Fort, AI-generated videos are giving history a Gen Z twist. These short, influencer-style reels are going viral on Instagram, drawing in young audiences with their meme-worthy tone and bite-sized history lessons.

Creators are using AI tools to bring historical figures into the modern era—speaking in everyday slang, joking about steroids, or even pitching businesses on a fictional 'Mughal Shark Tank'. "I started my page just two weeks back, as an experiment to blend AI with history," said Rahul S. Nair, creator of the Instagram page Katha.Ai, which now has over 122,000 followers. "I didn't expect that these videos will be received so well, especially by the Union Public Service Commission and government exam aspirants who now have an opportunity to brush up their concepts even while using social media."

Nair, an Indian architect based in London, is a history buff leveraging AI to make learning fun. He explains that the key lies in using relatable language.