You’ve recorded a video you can’t wait to share. But before anyone sees it, you have to trim clips, choose music, add subtitles, and maybe even dub it into another language. Suddenly, something that took a few minutes to film can turn into hours of work.
If you’ve ever made an Instagram reel, a college video or even a birthday montage, you probably know how frustrating this can get. Now imagine doing it for a living, often without a team of editors or the money for expensive tools.
For young creators with plenty of ideas but limited resources, turning those ideas into videos people will enjoy watching can be a real challenge.
Arjun Sai’s AatonovaZ brings filming, editing and multilingual dubbing together in one AI-powered ecosystem.
But what if you could simply tell a drone what to film, ask AI to edit the footage and have your video dubbed into another language, all through voice commands?
That’s exactly what 21-year-old Kosinepalli Arjun Sai from Tirupati is working towards.
A graduate in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from Mohan Babu University, Arjun has built AatonovaZ Technologies Pvt Ltd, a student-led startup developing AI-powered tools that aim to make filming, editing and dubbing videos easier for creators, especially those working on their own.
A Telugu version of Swades sparked his first AI idea
The idea began with a film Arjun wanted to watch, long before he started working on drones and other AI systems.
During his first semester of engineering in 2023, Arjun wanted to watch Swades, the acclaimed film starring Shah Rukh Khan. However, he struggled to find a Telugu-dubbed version.
“I don’t understand native Hindi that well,” Arjun explains. “I wanted to watch the film in Telugu, but I couldn’t find a version. When I researched further, I realised there was no simple way to do it without a dubbing studio and high costs.”
That discovery gave Arjun the idea for JusDub, an AI-powered multilingual dubbing tool that would later become part of AatonovaZ, the startup he founded.
But as he explored the problem further, he realised that dubbing was only one part of a much longer process. Why did creators need so many different tools to shoot, edit and share a single video?
Arjun’s first idea came from struggling to find a Telugu-dubbed version of Shah Rukh Khan’s film Swades.
Creators typically shoot using one device, edit using another platform, generate audio elsewhere, and then use separate tools for translation or dubbing. Arjun felt there had to be a more seamless way.
“We saw creators juggling multiple tools just to bring one idea to life,” he says. “We wanted to create a system where you simply come with your idea, your voice and your intent, and the ecosystem handles everything else.”
That vision eventually grew into AatonovaZ, an AI ecosystem designed to support creators from production to distribution.
One startup, three tools to make a video
Unlike standalone editing software or generative AI applications, AatonovaZ combines multiple technologies into a single workflow.
The startup currently revolves around three flagship products:
GarudaOne – A smart drone that can film videos when you give it simple voice instructions, such as “follow me” or “take a 360-degree shot”.
Editra – An AI video editor that takes your raw footage, puts the clips together, adds music and transitions, and prepares an edited video for you.
JusDub – An AI dubbing tool that translates videos into different languages while trying to preserve the speaker’s emotions, whether they’re happy, excited or sad.
GarudaOne is designed to let creators direct drone footage using voice commands in Indian languages, including Hindi and Telugu.
Together, these tools aim to bring tasks usually handled by videographers, editors, sound designers and dubbing artists into one connected system.
The company describes this approach as a “cyber-physical ecosystem”, which essentially means bringing physical devices and AI-powered software together so they can work as one system.
“Most AI today exists only inside laptops or data centres,” Arjun explains. “Our drone is a physical AI system. It takes decisions, performs obstacle avoidance, understands commands and coordinates with cloud-based software. Multiple systems work together seamlessly through AI.”
The concept has attracted attention because it merges physical hardware and generative AI into a creator-focused workflow rather than treating them as separate technologies.
A drone that can take filming commands in Hindi & Telugu
Among AatonovaZ’s products, GarudaOne is perhaps the most futuristic.
Instead of requiring users to manually control a drone through joysticks or complicated flight settings, the system is designed to respond to natural voice instructions.
A creator wearing a microphone can issue commands such as “orbit me”, “zoom in”, or “take a 360-degree shot”, and the drone is designed to plan its flight path, avoid obstacles and capture the footage automatically.
According to Arjun, one of its most striking features is multilingual compatibility.
Mentorship at Mohan Babu University helped Arjun narrow down his ideas and turn them into a student-led startup.
“The beauty of this drone is that it can be controlled using Indian languages,” he says. “You can instruct it in Hindi, Telugu or other languages, and it understands what needs to be done.”
Behind the scenes, AI helps the drone understand what you’re asking it to do, work out where and how to fly, avoid obstacles and share information with other connected software.
Building such a system, however, has not been easy.
“The biggest challenge is engineering,” Arjun admits. “It’s easy to say AI can do everything, but these models require significant computing power. Running powerful AI on compact hardware like a drone is one of the toughest problems we are solving.”
One hour of footage, edited in 20 minutes?
If GarudaOne handles production, Editra is designed to handle what happens after filming. Most AI editing tools today assist creators by recommending cuts or suggesting improvements. Editra aims to go further.
Arjun describes it as a system capable of understanding context, arranging footage, generating background music, adding transitions and preparing a draft version with minimal human intervention.
“You bring the raw footage and we do the heavy lifting,” he says. “The goal is that you upload your clips and receive a final draft ready for use.”
One feature the team believes could be particularly useful for creators is AI-generated, copyright-free music.
“Audio has a huge impact on engagement,” Arjun explains. “If the sound isn’t right, the emotional connection is lost. We generate music automatically, so creators don’t have to worry about copyright issues.”
According to Arjun, editing a typical one-hour recording using Editra can take as little as 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the video’s length and the user’s preferences. Creators can also incorporate additional human supervision when they want a specific editing style.
Can AI dubbing preserve the emotion behind someone’s words?
But even after a video is edited, there’s another challenge for creators who want to reach people who speak different languages. It’s a problem Arjun understood personally when he couldn’t find Swades in Telugu. And it’s what led him to build JusDub, his first AI product and the one that remains closest to his heart.
The platform addresses a challenge that millions of Indian creators encounter: producing content across multiple languages without losing emotional authenticity.
Traditional text-to-speech systems can generate fluent speech but often struggle to preserve emotional expression.
“The missing piece was emotion,” says Arjun. “A laugh, excitement or sadness in one language often gets flattened when translated into another.”
Think of someone excitedly sharing good news, or a person speaking through tears. Even if their words are translated correctly, the feeling behind them can get lost when a computer-generated voice reads them out.
AatonovaZ secured Rs 20 lakh in pre-seed funding under the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme to develop its technology.
That’s what Arjun wants to change with JusDub.
He explains that the AI tool is designed to pick up emotions in the original recording and adjust the voice, speed and tone in the dubbed version to match them.
For a creator making a video in Telugu, for instance, the idea is to help someone watching it in Hindi experience the same excitement, humour or sadness.
And in a country where people speak so many different languages, this could help creators share their videos with more people without spending heavily on separate dubbing studios.
The mentors who helped turn ideas into a startup
As Arjun began working on solutions for filming, editing and dubbing, he had several ideas he wanted to explore. But figuring out which ones to pursue and how to turn them into working products was another challenge. That’s where his mentors played an important role, helping him narrow down his ideas and focus on what he wanted to build.
According to Yudhish Jain, who mentors student entrepreneurs through the university’s incubation ecosystem, Arjun’s strongest quality was his focus on understanding the problem deeply before building solutions.
“Arjun and his team know their product inside out,” he says. “They have gone to the market, spoken to users and understood the sentiment. Their differentiation comes from the technology and their clarity of purpose.”
Jain believes tools like these could make it easier for more people to start creating videos, especially those who have the talent and ideas but struggle to get started.
“Many people possess skills and talent, but they don’t know how to enter the creator ecosystem,” he says. “What Arjun and his team are building addresses a market that remains largely untapped.”
Dr Padmaja and other university mentors helped Arjun refine his ideas, connect with experts and take his startup forward.
For Arjun, mentorship has been equally critical.
“Many founders get distracted by multiple opportunities,” he says. “My mentors constantly helped me stay aligned with the vision and avoid losing focus.”
The university’s support also opened doors for Arjun and his team. They got opportunities to connect with other entrepreneurs and learn from startup programmes, including exposure to NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore. These experiences helped them figure out how to turn their ideas into a business.
From a campus idea to Rs 20 lakh in funding and global recognition
Along the way, the startup also received funding and recognition for their work.
AatonovaZ secured Rs 20 lakh in pre-seed funding under the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, received support from government-backed incubators, and ranked among the Top 25 teams globally in Samsung Solve for Tomorrow.
The company also won ANVESHAN 2025–26 after emerging victorious in the South Zone competition. (Organised by the Association of Indian Universities, ANVESHAN is a student research and innovation competition where university teams present ideas and inventions aimed at solving real-world problems.)
For Dr Padmaja, Deputy Dean – Innovations at Mohan Babu University, these achievements show what can happen when students get the right environment and encouragement.
“I still remember when Arjun came to me with nearly 10 raw ideas,” she recalls. “I could see a spark in him. We connected him with mentors and provided guidance, and that changed the trajectory of the team.”
Still in the validation and pilot deployment stage, AatonovaZ is working towards making its connected AI tools commercially available to creators.
She believes success stories like AatonovaZ have a wider impact across campus.
“When students see founders among their peers, they stop asking ‘Who will hire me?’ and begin asking ‘What can I build?’ and ‘How can I create opportunities for others?’”
Today, AatonovaZ remains in the validation and pilot deployment stage. The company has tested its vision through multiple prototypes and is working towards commercialisation.
Its larger ambition extends beyond creating individual AI tools.
Arjun often compares the vision to Apple’s ecosystem model, where hardware and software work together to deliver a seamless experience.
“We don’t just want to build tools,” he says. “We want to build an experience. In simple terms, we want to create the iPhone for content creators.”
All images courtesy of Arjun Sai
