Your TV Will Soon Do Tasks For You Using AI Agents: Lumio CEO Raghu Reddy | Interview

The idea of your TV doing more than just streaming videos or playing games is no longer futuristic. In a conversation with Raghu Reddy, CEO and Co-Founder of Lumio, it became clear that the next phase of smart TVs will be powered by AI agents - not just basic features but assistants that can actually do tasks for you.AI (artificial intelligence) is everywhere right now, but when it comes to TVs, many brands are still limited to faster apps and better picture quality. Reddy explains that most of this is still surface-level. Brands are integrating AI to their presentations, but not clearly showing how it improves real-time usage.According to him, the real value of AI is not in flashy demos but in reducing effort for users."AI helps us augment

human intelligence by doing some of the things where you don’t have to keep doing it. You can instead authorise AI to do it for you," Reddy explained.This thinking is at the core of Lumio’s Project NEO. Rather than building features for the sake of it, the Indian brand is trying to identify tasks that users find repetitive or time-consuming and eliminate them.“We’re trying to build out agents in the background that can help you do your work,” he said.

What Is Project Neo?

According to the company, Project Neo is an ambitious software initiative under Lumio Labs which solves the biggest friction point in the living room - content discovery. The Bengaluru-based startup says most users discover content on their phones but watch it on their TVs. To bridge this gap, Project Neo connects apps like WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram directly to the TV experience.

So instead of typing on a slow TV keyboard, users can simply forward a Reel or send a message like 'movies where the villain wins' to the TLDR bot. The AI understands what you mean, finds where the content is available, and creates a watchlist directly on your TV. This makes the whole process faster and much easier.Project Neo will be rolled out to all Lumio Devices later this year.Speaking on the use of AI agents in TVs, Reddy said that this is exactly the direction Lumio is heading in. "With Project NEO, what we’re trying to do is actually help tools that operate like an agent on your behalf and do all the grunt work that you’d end up doing,” he said."Instead of you doing it, you delegate that work to the agent,and they will do that and seamlessly give you the output," he further added. This could change how users interact with their TVs. Today, people spend time searching across apps, adjusting settings, or browsing endlessly. With AI agents, much of this could happen automatically in the background. This process can make your experience more seamless and effortless.Lumio Launches Vision 9 And Vision 7 TVs In India: Price, Features And What’s New

That effort is not limited to entertainment. Lumio CEO also pointed out how AI-powered TVs can be useful for education, especially in Indian households where the TV is often the primary screen.While he did not go into specific features, the idea is clear. AI can help users discover relevant content more easily.We also asked Reddy about the much-hyped yet serious topic of whether AI will take away jobs.' He replied, "I believe that, in some sense, it’s a force multiplier. People who are able to use it will be a lot more productive in the context of their business and in their personal life as well."

TVs vs Smart Projectors

Lumio CEO also explains why Gen Z is skipping TVs for smart projectors. Reddy said a large chunk of projector buyers today are from Gen Z. "A lot of our customers are much younger than traditional TV audiences… we can say Gen Z - 18 to 25-year-olds," he said.The reason behind the shift, according to him, is flexibility and lifestyle preferences."They want to have a big screen experience. They don’t want to be saddled with a device that they can’t move around. I can safely say like 70–80 per cent of our projector customers are actually Gen Z,” Reddy noted.