In 2025, we learned to talk to AI. In 2026, we learned to delegate to it. The prompt became a brief — and you became the director.
The fully updated 2026 Edition of India's practical guide to generative AI — written not by a technologist, but by a working filmmaker who ships AI-made films to broadcast, with the mistakes included at no extra charge.
AI didn't just get smarter this year. Your job changed. Agents now plan, act and correct themselves. Images and video are directed with references, not guesswork. Software gets built by describing it. And as everyone gains the same tools, everyone's work has started looking eerily the same. This book is the working system for the new reality — how to direct AI like a crew, and how to stay original while doing it.
NEW & FULLY UPDATED IN THIS EDITION:
- THE SEEDANCE MASTERCLASS — a complete production system for AI video: call sheets, shot-by-shot and timecode prompting, character reference sheets, audio sync and lip-sync, ad films, action, 2D/3D animation — with real case files from broadcast campaigns
- The Agentic Age — agents, Skills, and the craft of the brief: how to delegate to AI and actually trust the result
- Vibe Coding — build real tools and apps with plain language, even if you've never written code
- Your Pink Is Not My Pink — the creator's vocabulary: why precise language is now the entire interface, from the taxonomy of a smile to the director's dictionary of shots and light
- Reference-driven creation — the 2026 way of making images and video: show, don't tell
- The 2026 model landscape — GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, Grok, the open-source wave, and India's own sovereign AI story
- The new sound department — AI music in the licensing era, voice, and Indian-language audio
- The Great Sameness — the research on why AI makes everyone's work alike, and the method to stay different: think first, prompt second
- The Soldier with Two Faces — creating responsibly: likeness, copyright, consent, and the checks every professional needs before publishing
WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR: Creators, marketers, filmmakers, designers, entrepreneurs, students — anyone who wants AI to execute their vision instead of replacing it. No coding required. No hype included.
WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT: This isn't a list of prompts to copy — those expire in a quarter. It's an apprenticeship in a way of working that survives every new tool: vocabulary, briefs, reference systems, and judgment. Every chapter ends with a takeaway you can use the same day, and the case studies come from real campaigns for national channels and legacy music labels — not demos.
The tools in this book will make you fast. Its closing chapters will keep you different.
Da Sachin Sharma is a Mumbai-based creative director and AI filmmaker with 18+ years across film and advertising, founder of X DOT AI and Mantram, and Guest Faculty at the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies. Now in its fifth edition, Prompt DOT AI has become the working handbook for India's AI-creative generation.
"I'm Da. See you in the next update."
