- 1 day ago
At FICCI Frames 2025, India Today Group Vice Chairperson Kalli Purie said AI should be embraced, not feared, as it enhances newsroom efficiency by removing monotony and enabling innovations like AI anchors and automated transcriptions.
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00:00Hi, good evening everybody. I can see that the glam quotient is reduced in the room, so
00:04Kali, we'll have to hold up the glam quotient of this room, okay?
00:09That's exactly what you do, Nazareth.
00:11Really? You know, in a world where consumers are surrounded by media 24-7, it's a point I made
00:18yesterday also, short stories, long form, short form, microdramas, podcasts, where does news lie?
00:27How does it remain relevant, profitable, has the same traction that, you know, I don't
00:36know how many, what is the average age of this room? But in the era I grew up, news was extremely
00:43important. The quality of news that you read was extremely important. And the idea here
00:48is to look at a 50-year-old brand, which has remained, by the way, this is India Today's
00:5450th year. Congratulations. So, how does a 50-year-old brand, which came out with India's
01:01first AI anchor, which is doing, I think, some of the most cutting-edge work, I mean, I went
01:07to their office earlier this year, and just now Kali showed me something. I don't know
01:11if you're playing that clip. They're really doing a whole lot of interesting work around
01:17technology, integrating the newsroom, and AI. So, Kali, quickly, how does news stay relevant
01:23in this time, and how does a 50-year-old brand stay relevant?
01:25First of all, nowadays, 50 is a new 25. I'm so glad to hear that. So, we're still a very
01:35young brand, and I think that the line that Chairman once said in his letter to the editor
01:41many, many years ago holds true for everything that we do. Men age, magazines don't. That was
01:50years ago. I think that was maybe in the 20th year of India today, he said that. And today,
01:55India Today magazine is 50 years. And in true sense of that, men have aged, but the magazine
02:03hasn't, because from producing, when it started fortnightly, so two in a month, right, now we're
02:11producing 120,000 pieces of content a month, which is insane, right? At its peak, India Today magazine,
02:20I think, was 5 million readership, right? Now you have 5 billion video views in a month. So, just look
02:29at the scale of what's happened, right? The brand, in that sense, has not either slowed down or lost its
02:37relevance. I know lots of people think that, oh, you know, people are not watching primetime
02:41that they, like they used to, switch on news, right? But I think that what's happened is news
02:48has become a central part of your life through the day. Instead of us connecting with the audience
02:55at one time in the day, you're connecting with them from the morning. Because the minute they pick
03:00up their phone, first thing in the morning, you wake up, you pick up your phone, and there are news
03:04alerts. So, you're connected with us from that time. You may not be connecting with us
03:09on one particular platform that you used to, but you're connecting with us across different
03:15platforms.
03:15Take me through it in the India Today journey with the news consumer.
03:19So, like, for example, in India Today now, Sire of is a magazine, right? Now it has an app.
03:25It has a WhatsApp channel. It has a website. It has a mobile site. It has an Instagram site.
03:32It has a Snapchat. It has Twitter. And it has a television channel, right? And it also
03:37has events. It also has podcasts. So, it's a, it's a, it's, the strategy is that if there
03:43is a platform available, your brand should be on it.
03:47How do you integrate all the pieces? And where does the core brand come in here? You know,
03:51that integrated newsroom thing, which we talked about? You want to bring that in?
03:55Yeah. So, the integrated newsroom is actually the key of what we do and is very central to
04:00our DNA. And it took a long time to put together. It's not an easy thing to do, right? There's
04:07a lot of carrot and stick. But I think over, over time, what happens is if you're consistent
04:12about it, you start getting in, you train people who are already there and you start getting
04:16in people who are married to that ethos. They basically want to tell a story and they're
04:22not stuck to a medium. So, like the fun thing, for example, earlier on, the reporters would
04:29only do stories for one particular platform. And it would be very hard to get them to do
04:34a story for another platform, even digital. They were like, oh, who reads digital, right?
04:38But over time, when that cusp happened, where digital became just as big as print, they started
04:43getting feedback and interaction with the work that they did on digital. They started
04:47doing it themselves. Now, if you don't tweet out their story, they will make your life miserable.
04:53We have 80 full-time reporters and 400 stringers and retainers, right? How many things can we
05:00tweet out? So, one of the people who has the most stressful job is a social media editor who
05:05has to do that filtering where people are fighting, you know, like, please give us time. So,
05:09the latest thing that reporters have done, they've been doing digital and TV and print
05:14and social anyway, is we've launched a podcast with them called Reporters Off Air. So, they
05:20come in once a week and they sit around and they have chai and it's recorded and they talk
05:25about whatever has happened in the week, which is sort of semi-official, unofficial and what
05:32it took them to get a story. And the engagement of that is phenomenal because people want to
05:37know what was the backstory, right? What happened behind what they just saw on air.
05:42Okay.
05:43So, it's a great way and part of it is just organic, right? Conversations with reporters
05:46because I'll talk to them and they'll tell me the juiciest pieces of information. And I'm like,
05:51okay, this is not on air. I understand that some of it can't be on air, but a slightly
05:56sanitized version of it can go. It can't go on TV. It can definitely go on a podcast and that's
06:01where it started. And they started it. And it's, you know, done really well.
06:06But this 24-7 then involves definitely multiple brands. So, you have Lalantop, you have BT,
06:12you have India Today, you have Mo. All of it put together is what the India Today brand is.
06:17Tell me a lot about your, a lot of the work that you've done in AI. I find that fascinating
06:22because I see news organizations using it for workflow, for a whole lot of, you know,
06:29subbing dubbing kind of work in entertainment and workflow in news. But India Today has taken it
06:34several steps forward. I mean, you've created AI Popstars. I just saw an advert. Are we playing
06:40that advert, by the way?
06:42No, so it's not an advert. It was basically a way to create anchor links for our Bihar elections,
06:49right? Instead of doing, getting the anchor to do the links for the different packages,
06:56we said, why can't we use Bihar's folk singing traditions to do it? And now, if we had shot
07:03this, it would be impossible to do in the time frame we wanted to do it. But if you do it through
07:07AI, you can actually do it. Now, this wasn't something I went down and discussed. Because we've
07:13been working on this medium for the last two years, these things are happening automatically,
07:19within the team. And to me, that is the most reassuring sort of reward, let's say, of what we
07:27put together, right? That it's happening as a reflex. Producers, anchors are actually thinking,
07:33oh, we can do this through AI. They're not stopping their thinking, saying, how will we shoot this?
07:38What will it cost? They're like, just think it, because we can do it. Now, I don't know, can we
07:42actually play that piece out? Because it'll kind of give the audience a flavor of what I'm talking
07:48about. Otherwise, it's just a lot of words.
07:50Okay, let's go.
07:51Yeah.
08:21.
08:51I think you get the feel of what we're trying to show you.
09:13So the whole thing here has actually been created in AI.
09:16The actors don't exist.
09:18The music doesn't exist.
09:19There was no recording studio, right?
09:21It was an idea and a script and it was written through prompts and we created this.
09:26So this is an amazing possibility that AI is opening up, you know?
09:31Is it a large strategic plan?
09:32And I think we've had this conversation earlier.
09:34Is it any strategy, whether it's on cost cutting, revenue augmentation, or simply innovation
09:41as far as using AI in your business is concerned?
09:45One of the things that has been the secret sauce of our success, and you mentioned that,
09:50you're a 50-year-old brand, how do you continue to be young, how do you continue to be profitable,
09:55is that we always adopt new technology and we go towards it without fear, right?
10:01Just the way we approach stories, that's how we approach technology.
10:04So when it came to social media, we were right up there, which is why all of our stats on social media
10:11with both of our brands, English and Hindi, whether it's Instagram, WhatsApp channel, Twitter,
10:16they're really, really good because we've really worked at it and we go for it very aggressively.
10:21AI, I see as a new technology and being fearful of it is not going to help, right?
10:26I think that you've got to jump in feet first and get to the depths of that technology
10:31and master it before it masters you.
10:34So it allows you to use it and uses for it will come up as you go along, right?
10:39Like now we had never thought of this idea, but because it's being socialized across the teams,
10:44different people in the teams are thinking of it on how to make their life efficient better, right?
10:49One part is it takes out the monotony.
10:51Nobody likes to do transcription.
10:53You know how boring transcription is, right?
10:55Now AI lets you do that.
10:57Different languages, which you've already talked about, Netflix, OTT anyway does it.
11:01But things like this, where you can create very expansive footage and visuals without any shoots, right?
11:09It's allowing you to do that.
11:10It's allowing you to create AI anchors to do things when anchors don't want to be in a ship,
11:16like let's say 3 a.m., right?
11:18It's allowing us to create AI versions of our anchors, of course with permission,
11:24so that when they are away or they are on field, we can still use them in studio.
11:29AI cloning of their voices so that you can have better voiceovers with your signature voices
11:34versus a person, you know, who may not be available at a particular time.
11:38So I think that the idea is to increase efficiency, reduce monotony, look at new revenue streams,
11:48which this could create, but also just be in the center of the technology and see where it goes, you know?
11:55I don't know the answer to it right now because every day something new happens and it's amazing.
11:59Fair enough.
12:00But, you know, there's also this thing that AI is growing on the very thing that it's feeding on,
12:06which is a copyright for original work across the world.
12:09As a news publisher, where do you stand on that one?
12:13Well, I think that, you know, first of all, as a news publisher, we've been totally scraped by Big Tech, right?
12:20Without permission, without permission, right?
12:23So part of it is like, okay, you can sit there and complain, you took all our stuff without permission.
12:28Now, you know, are we going to sue you and nothing is going to come of it?
12:32Or you can join the game and say, okay, you know what?
12:33We're going to use the engines and the tools you've created to fight your own game or be part of the game.
12:39Again, we're very mindful of copyright because we, at this moment in time, are creating things ourselves.
12:47We are not sort of scraping off other people.
12:49It is from the genius of the mind of our own people, but the tools are different.
12:55Instead of shooting it, for example, we're using tools and prompts to do it.
12:58We're not creating likeness of Amitabh Bachchan to do the anchor links, but we could have.
13:03We could have done him, like, slightly shorter blue eyes.
13:07There's no IP to that, right?
13:08So I'm saying that that's a very interesting area that law, ethics, AI will have to resolve.
13:15How, you know, you've read this thing about how people are going and registering themselves to say, I'm human and I have an IP.
13:23That's crazy.
13:24What kind of planet are we on that we have to register ourselves as an IP and say, I'm human so that AI can't copy us?
13:31Even dead people, you mentioned.
13:33What about dead people's IP?
13:34I mean, you've seen that there have been fight on old singers that have been brought to life.
13:41Bart Harkre recently was brought to life by two parts of his party, right?
13:47The Shinde side and his son.
13:49And each claiming his legacy, right?
13:52Where he's saying things which he had not said, right?
13:56They made him.
13:56Now, who has the right to do that?
13:58Does the bloodline have it?
14:00Does anyone who owns his legacy have it?
14:02I don't know the answers to that, right?
14:04Lawyers will have to sort those things out.
14:06So we haven't got into the tricky bits yet with the stuff that we're doing.
14:10But we're definitely watching the space very carefully.
14:13You know, one of the things, though we've sort of skipped a lot of that, it mentioned that, you know, how news is shaping India's identity.
14:24But sometimes I wonder in this period in time when we're surrounded by it 24-7, are country-specific brands in this space even relevant?
14:35I'm just curious.
14:36How do you look at it?
14:37I think they're even more relevant, you know.
14:38Because now, earlier on, I think there was this sense of if it's foreign or it's coming from America or UK, it must be more credible, right?
14:47But I think that sense is gone.
14:49Somewhere that mask that, you know, West was better than us has fallen.
14:55And part of the work has been what Prime Minister has done from 2014 to really bring pride back in India and Indians.
15:03And that has led to people wanting sources from their own countries.
15:21And you've seen that, that people trust in Middle East, trust Al Jazeera.
15:25In Russia, they're trusting Russia today.
15:26That's the voice.
15:28And CNN is for America and NYT, et cetera, et cetera.
15:31But I think that India needs its own voice, right?
15:34I think we're a little bit late to the game.
15:37We have, not we as an India Today group, but overall, right?
15:42There are two points I want to make here.
15:44I think digitally, we're all trying to have a global voice.
15:48A lot of the media organizations in India have tried that.
15:51We have one as well, which we're sort of working on.
15:54It's called India Today Global.
15:55And we talk about global events and India's point of view on it.
15:58Because news right now is dominated by global events.
16:01The second thing I want to say is a little bit more contentious and controversial.
16:07Aaj Tak, right now, is the world's number one news channel on YouTube.
16:13The number one.
16:14It's more than any other news channel in the world, right?
16:17We are, I think, close to 80 million subscribers or 75, 74 million subscribers on Aaj Tak.
16:25But we don't necessarily get the same stature as an international brand, which may be slightly smaller.
16:33And this is my constant sort of fight and representation to them.
16:37And I think that to a certain extent, there is digital imperialism now, right?
16:43Where something coming in from a country outside of maybe America and Europe is not given necessarily the same stature.
16:51The metric is not exactly the same.
16:53It's not a case of how many viewers and subscribers and page views you have, right?
16:57They're doing their own metric, which is weighted.
17:00So, in that sense...
17:02I didn't understand.
17:02Stature meaning what?
17:03I mean, T-Series is the biggest YouTube channel in the world.
17:05In terms of revenue.
17:06So, let's say one viewer in India is not the same as one viewer in the U.S.
17:12By a huge margin.
17:13So, the revenues that you can leverage that is not the same as for our global...
17:18And also the allowances that they will make.
17:22Ah, okay.
17:23Okay.
17:24I hear you.
17:25Yeah.
17:25I hear you.
17:25So, there is that little bit of digital imperialism, I feel, that we are facing now.
17:32Because the world's biggest platforms are from our side of here.
17:35Yes.
17:35So, we build our own platform and let's see what happens.
17:38Yes.
17:38Absolutely.
17:39I don't know why, but they've cut our time.
17:41So, we seem to have time, but I've got a chit saying time's up.
17:45But thank you, Kali.
17:46That was a wonderful thing.
17:47I love the stuff about AI and the tech part that you're going.
17:51It scares the shit out of me, but I really love...
17:52No, I want to add one thing since our time is not up and we can see it on the timer.
17:59I don't care about the chit.
18:01So, I think one of the things I want to talk about since we talked about AI and workforces,
18:06I think one of the things that's sort of exciting me is right now as a news organization, you are primary source or first source, right?
18:17People want to hear about a news event from a human being's point of view and they want a reporter on the ground to tell that story.
18:26So, that piece for right now, AI cannot replicate.
18:31But if you had seen yesterday Optimus Robot by Tesla, which is doing Kung Fu, right?
18:38I can see in the future, maybe 10 years from now, a robot reporter, right?
18:44Good Lord.
18:45Now, just imagine that.
18:46You're a reporter.
18:47You program that robot to be like your persona and he goes out in dangerous places, right?
18:54And goes and covers a story.
18:56Now, maybe the reporters then don't need to be as courageous as they are going into very dangerous places to go and cover a story where they just send their robots.
19:05A little bit like drones are going out to do dangerous things.
19:08So, that'll be really exciting.
19:10Maybe my next team will be a whole lot of like 10 years from now robots and all of the reporters and anchors, etc. are sitting in safe places.
19:17What about robot managers?
19:19Can you see Vivek?
19:20Look, I think one of the main things is AI has to be treated like a sandwich.
19:26What I call is an AI sandwich.
19:27So, you have human bread, human bread, AI in between.
19:31AI is a jam, right?
19:32And if you have human intervention from the beginning, which is a starting point and the finishing point, then you're really good.
19:39Now, time is up.
19:43Now, time is up and time for tea and sandwich then.
19:46Thank you so much.
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