IIT Kanpur’s Antaragni 2026, one of the country’s prominent student cultural festivals, became a showcase for the future of AI-powered tourism engagement as Explurger and Andhra Pradesh Tourism brought technology-led destination discovery to thousands of young visitors. Through NiVU, Explurger’s AI-powered travel assistant, the collaboration transformed the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Pavilion into an interactive discovery hub, bringing the state’s destinations, heritage, culture and experiences closer to a digitally connected generation.

With Andhra Pradesh Tourism as the Official Destination Partner and Explurger’s NiVU as its Official AI Partner, the association went beyond conventional destination promotion. It introduced an innovative, AI-enabled engagement model that combined campus-wide QR interactions, digital integration, quizzes, and contests to encourage students to discover Andhra Pradesh in a more engaging and accessible way.

Drawing lakhs of visitors over its four-day run, Antaragni 2026 brought together students from IIT Kanpur, other IITs, the University of Delhi, and universities across the country. The fest featured performances by popular artists, including Shaan, KR$NA, Little Bhatia, RAVATOR, AOORA and Apurva, attracting a diverse audience of students, music enthusiasts and young cultural explorers. Amid the high-energy celebrations, the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Pavilion became a major engagement destination, recording an average footfall of about 1,500 visitors daily.

At the heart of the collaboration was NiVU, which brought an AI-powered layer of interaction to the festival. QR codes strategically installed across the IIT Kanpur campus enabled visitors to access the AI assistant, participate in interactive quizzes, discover festival-related information, and explore Andhra Pradesh's tourism offerings. NiVU was also integrated into the official Antaragni website, extending the experience beyond the physical campus and making relevant festival and pavilion information accessible through a digital interface.

The Andhra Pradesh Tourism Pavilion offered visitors an opportunity to discover the state through NiVU's interactive AI experience. By scanning the prominently displayed QR codes, students could explore tourism destinations, heritage attractions, cultural traditions, spiritual experiences, local cuisine, and other travel highlights of Andhra Pradesh. Instead of simply browsing promotional displays, visitors could actively engage with destination information and discover experiences at their own pace.

The experience was further amplified through a series of interactive quizzes. The initiative witnessed an enthusiastic response, with thousands of students participating in the Explurger-organised ‘Ask NiVU’ quiz, testing their knowledge of Andhra Pradesh while discovering the state's diverse tourism destinations, heritage and cultural experiences. Adding to the excitement, winners received a range of prizes, including Amazon vouchers, Sonu Sood-signed merchandise, Canva subscriptions, Hungama subscriptions, Plum products and chocolates. The rewards added an element of excitement to the experience while creating memorable interactions with the young audience.

What made the collaboration particularly significant was the way it extended tourism engagement beyond the boundaries of a conventional exhibition pavilion. With NiVU deployed across the campus and integrated into the festival's digital ecosystem, Andhra Pradesh Tourism gained multiple touchpoints to connect with potential travellers. The initiative demonstrated how QR-enabled AI technology can bring destination information directly to audiences, encourage active participation, and make tourism discovery more interactive.

For Andhra Pradesh Tourism, Antaragni provided an opportunity to introduce the state's diverse tourism potential to a young, nationwide audience. From its celebrated temples, spiritual circuits and architectural heritage to its beaches, natural landscapes, cuisine and cultural traditions, Andhra Pradesh has a wide range of experiences to offer. The NiVU-powered engagement created an accessible gateway for students to explore these offerings and discover reasons to put the state on their travel plans.

For Explurger, the initiative marked another step in demonstrating how NiVU can take AI-powered tourism beyond conventional digital platforms and into real-world environments. By combining conversational AI, QR-based access and digital integration, NiVU showcased its potential as a destination engagement platform that can connect tourism boards with travellers at events, institutions and high-footfall public spaces.

The collaboration also reflects a larger shift in the way destinations are approaching younger audiences. Today's students are digitally connected, curious and increasingly interested in discovering new places and experiences. Bringing AI into tourism engagement creates opportunities to move beyond one-way communication towards more personalised, interactive and experience-led discovery.

“At Explurger, we believe the future of tourism lies in making destination discovery more interactive, accessible and experience-driven. Antaragni gave us an exciting opportunity to connect with a young, digitally engaged audience and introduce them to Andhra Pradesh through NiVU AI. We aimed to go beyond traditional destination promotion and create meaningful interactions where technology sparks curiosity, encourages exploration, and inspires people to experience destinations firsthand. This is exactly how we envision AI transforming the tourism landscape,” said Jitin Bhatia, founder & CEO of Explurger

Antaragni 2026, Explurger and Andhra Pradesh Tourism demonstrated how technology, culture, and youth engagement can come together to create a new approach to destination promotion. With NiVU bringing the destination closer through simple QR-led interactions, the initiative offered a glimpse into how AI can reshape tourism discovery and make exploring India's destinations more accessible to the next generation.

Through NiVU, Explurger continues to advance its vision of making travel discovery smarter, more interactive, and more accessible, taking AI out of the digital conversation and bringing it directly into real-world tourism experiences.

About Explurger & NiVU AI

Explurger is a Google-incubated, Made-in-India, AI-driven travel-first social media and technology platform founded by Jitin Bhatia and co-founded by Sonu Sood, with over 25 million users across 75+ countries. Its AI-powered conversational tourism platform, NiVU AI, enables multilingual, voice- and text-based destination discovery in over 130 languages, bringing heritage, culture and local experiences closer to travellers through intelligent, QR-enabled interactions. As part of its three-year strategic partnership with Andhra Pradesh Tourism, signed in July 2026, Explurger aims to deploy NiVU AI across 100+ tourist, heritage and pilgrimage destinations, advancing the state's vision of smarter, more accessible and technology-led tourism.