India's Pocket FM has doubled its annualized revenue run rate to $500 million over the past year, driven by an aggressive shift to AI-powered content production. AI now produces 99% of the platform's new content and powers 93% of its overall catalog.
The economics are striking: AI has made content production about 80 times cheaper. What previously took a year to produce — 100 hours of audio content — can now be completed in a single day. The platform's 550,000+ creators are generating approximately 2.5 million hours of AI-powered content annually, up from a total catalog of just 100,000 hours two years ago.
Despite the AI dominance in production, human creators remain central to the creative process. CEO Rohan Nayak says the company builds AI tools around the creative workflow rather than generating content autonomously. "We want to create great IPs that last 100 years, and that needs humans," Nayak told TechCrunch.
The strategy is paying off commercially. Revenue retention has climbed to 76% from 44% two years ago, driven partly by having more content to match listener preferences. Ninety-six titles have generated over $1 million each, with 13 crossing $10 million.
The U.S. market — which grew 70% over the past year — now accounts for roughly 70% of revenue. The platform reaches over 250 million listeners across 20+ countries. Of its $500 million annualized revenue, about $85 million comes from advertising and $415 million from users paying to unlock individual episodes.
Pocket FM is also expanding beyond audio. Its three-month-old microdrama app Pocket Saga has reached a $15 million annualized run rate in the U.S., with entirely AI-produced content. The company is now in talks to raise fresh capital at an estimated $2 billion valuation.
