Hyderabad / New Delhi, 23 October 2026 — An interactive Holobot of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda has been unveiled at the Chinmaya Amrit Mahotsav Global Sammelan at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. The installation, created under the aegis of Bhairav Films and executed by Avantari Technologies, allows visitors to hold conversations with a digital persona of the Mission’s founder, drawing answers exclusively from content approved by Chinmaya Mission.

The three-day Sammelan, from 23 to 25 October 2026, is expected to bring together more than 9,000 participants from India and abroad and marks 75 years of Chinmaya Mission, founded by Swami Chinmayananda in 1951. Swami Chinmayananda died in 1993.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the event and spoke with the Holobot. Doordarshan News reported that he said the interaction brought back memories of his 1993 meeting with Gurudev in Vadodara, describing the experience as deeply moving and saying it felt as though he had travelled back 33 years.

Recreating a manner, not only a memory
The Holobot is an AI-powered holographic avatar. Using archival footage, Gurudev’s voice, manner of speech, timing, analogies, and body language have been reconstructed in detail. He was a distinctive speaker, known for adding dramatic flair at unexpected moments, and audiences who heard him in life would notice immediately if that were wrong.

Knowledge responses are limited to the Mission’s approved archive of teachings, writings, and recordings. Where the archive does not cover a question, the system says so rather than generating an answer. Visitors are clearly informed that they are speaking with AI. In practice, many continue the conversation regardless.

“Gurudev was larger than life, and that was the engineering problem,” said Bhairav Shankar, chief executive of Avantari Technologies. “His knowledge comes from what the Mission approved. His way of speaking was recreated from archival footage so that the voice, face, and timing hold together. People are told they are talking to AI, and they continue the conversation anyway. The constraint we will not move is that it stays inside the approved archive and admits when a question falls outside it.”

“Creating the interactive Holobot of Swami Chinmayananda was an opportunity to bring together technology and spirituality in a meaningful way,” said Mani Shankar, founder of Bhairav Films. “The aim was to create an experience that allows people to engage with his teachings and enduring legacy through innovation. Being part of Chinmaya Mission’s 75th anniversary celebrations makes this initiative particularly special.”

The technology
The persona runs on DECS, Avantari’s conversational AI, which shapes voice, expression, gaze, and timing to the meaning of each reply. It is presented through HoloBot, the company’s range of interfaces for public spaces, which can be deployed on screen, as a compact counter unit, or at full height. The underlying technology is the subject of a published international patent application, WO2023002511A1, filed by Avantari in 2021.

A conversational installation in a hall of this size faces difficulties that do not appear in a demonstration: isolating one speaker’s question against sustained background noise, replying quickly enough that the exchange feels like conversation, and driving facial movement in step with speech. Avantari designs both the hardware and the AI for these installations, so microphone arrays, on-device computing, display, and enclosure are decided alongside the conversational system.

“This installation continues Pujya Gurudev’s lifelong work of making the wisdom of Vedanta accessible,” said [name and designation] of Chinmaya Mission. “Visitors can ask questions and hear his teaching drawn from the Mission’s approved material, in a form that reflects his distinctive manner of speaking.”

About the Sammelan
The Sammelan continues through 25 October with spiritual sessions, Vedic chanting, musical programmes and an exhibition. It follows a year of celebrations that included the Chinmaya Amrit Yatra and global Gita chanting by more than one lakh people, commemorating the Mission’s 75-year journey.

About Chinmaya Mission
Chinmaya Mission is a global spiritual organisation founded by Swami Chinmayananda to make the teachings of Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita widely accessible. It operates more than 350 centres worldwide and is currently headed by Swami Swaroopananda.

About Bhairav Films and Avantari Technologies
Bhairav Films is the contracting entity for the Holobot. It was founded by Mani Shankar, who has a pioneering record in large-scale holographic projection in India.

Avantari Technologies Private Limited, founded in 2014 and based in Hyderabad, is the design and engineering studio that executed the technical build. It works across hardware, embedded systems, and conversational AI, including the HoloBot platform and digital personas for institutional use. Website: https://www.avantari.org