Google Gemini casts Sunil Grover in several roles for its Diwali ad

A one-man household for Diwali

Google Gemini has launched a Diwali campaign built around a playful word, 'tyohaarmaxx', and a performer known for changing characters: Sunil Grover. As afaqs! reported, the film uses his range to show how an AI assistant can help with the many small jobs that come with the festival.

It opens with Grover as a woman putting lights up in her home. In the next scene he plays her mother, who asks Gemini for aarti timings (the schedule for the prayer ritual) and wants an alarm set. The film then brings two families together, where different characters ask Gemini for ideas on attractive lighting and on date plans for after Diwali.

The closing line is the tagline: "There is a Google Gemini for every Sunil."

What the ad is really selling

The message is that Gemini is a handy companion for ordinary tasks, not a specialist tool. Each character stands for a different person with a different need, and Grover's costume changes make that point with humour instead of a feature list.

Notice what is missing from the pitch. It does not mention model names, benchmarks or technical claims. The tasks shown are checking a time, setting a reminder and asking for suggestions, all things a first-time user could picture doing on a phone.

The source does not say how the film will be distributed or what it cost, so those details remain unknown.

From Shah Rukh Khan to Sunil Grover

The campaign continues a run of efforts to make Gemini feel familiar in India. In August, Google India released a campaign with Shah Rukh Khan that presented Gemini as a friendly helper for everyday problems. It stressed conversation and support for multiple languages, with a focus on users in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, meaning smaller cities and towns.

That earlier campaign came from an idea by Prasoon Joshi, who chairs Omnicom Advertising India. McCann India and Nirvana Films also worked on it. It showed Gemini helping people look into opportunities and make choices in the language they prefer.

Grover's film shifts the tone. Where the Khan campaign leaned on a star as a reassuring guide, the new one leans on comedy and a rotating cast of characters played by one person.

Television and a familiar comedic trick

Google has also gone into TV drama. In September it teamed up with JioStar to write AI-powered Search features into the plots of two serials, Anupama and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai. In Anupama, the lead character, played by Rupali Ganguly, uses AI Mode in Google Search when she does not know how to start planning a new house.

That approach works differently from the Gemini film. It places the technology inside domestic situations viewers already follow, so the product appears as part of the story instead of in a separate ad.

The Grover idea also has a precedent. In October 2024, Zomato cast him in two Diwali ads for its large-order fleet, a service for food orders at gatherings and parties. In one, a comment about the sheer size of the menu leads him to show off his own range by playing a variety of personas, such as a glamorous woman and an elderly man. There, the costume changes stood for menu variety; for Gemini, they stand for one assistant serving many kinds of people.

What to take from it

This is a marketing story, and promotional by nature, so it tells us how Google wants Gemini to be seen, not how well it performs. Whether the assistant handles aarti timings or lighting suggestions reliably is something the ad cannot show.

Still, the pattern is useful to watch. AI companies are competing not only on capability but on cultural fit: festivals, local languages, well-known faces and TV storylines. In a market as large and varied as India, that may matter as much as the technology itself.