Today in AI | Tata Play's AI mascot Coco makes debut | Google's new AI feature

The world of Artificial Intelligence has only begun to affect human lives. In times like these, staying up-to-date with the AI world is of utmost importance. Storyboard18 brings you the top AI news of the day.

Tata Play unveils AI augmented mascot Coco

Satellite television company Tata Play has introduced Coco, an AI-assisted puppy mascot set to represent the brand across all consumer touchpoints. It has been developed in collaboration with Ogilvy and Aesthetic Intelligence Labs.

While Coco was originally designed through traditional techniques, his production was powered by a hybrid pipeline of 15+ AI tools that combined animation with generative AI tools, motion models, and custom visual logic engines. To address challenges like inconsistent textures and expressions, the team built a visual dataset of over 8,000 frames.

Through short-format films developed entirely using generative AI, the campaign introduces a fresh, humanised tone to product features, platform benefits, and service messaging. Coco serves not just as a mascot, but as a consistent, emotionally engaging brand asset designed to evolve with changing media behaviour. It also demonstrates how methodical use of AI can unlock scalable, high-impact storytelling without losing authenticity.

Google Chrome for Android adds AI feature to turn webpages into podcast-style audio

Google has introduced a new AI-powered feature for Chrome on Android that converts webpages into podcast-like audio experiences. The update builds on the browser’s existing Read Aloud function, now offering Audio Overviews, which condense and narrate online content through conversational voices.

Unlike the standard Read Aloud option, which reads articles verbatim, Audio Overviews use artificial intelligence to summarise key points in the style of a dialogue between two AI hosts. The feature aims to make long, text-heavy articles easier to consume, providing users with a podcast-style playback of webpages while on the move.

Study finds 95% of companies see no return on AI investments due to ‘learning gap’

A new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has revealed that 95% of organisations are seeing zero return on their generative AI (GenAI) investments, despite $30–40 billion being poured into enterprise deployments.

Titled The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, the report surveyed 300 AI deployments and interviewed approximately 350 employees to understand why such a large share of AI initiatives fail to generate measurable profit.

According to the study, the primary barrier is not infrastructure, regulation, or talent, but a “learning gap.” Most GenAI systems, it notes, “do not retain feedback, adapt to context, or improve over time,” meaning that investments fail to scale effectively. Only 5% of integrated AI pilots were found to extract millions in value, while the vast majority produced no measurable impact on profit and loss.