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We're building a newsroom that's not afraid to play with tech: Kalli Purie
What's behind the launch of AI pop stars Aishan and Ruh?
Nilanjan (Das, group creative director) is our main AI guy. He is always experimenting, sending me AI music. That's where the A-pop idea came. We put these two pop stars together and launched them on our radio station (Ishq) without any explanation. We revealed it at the India Today Conclave (March 2025). Music Today (the group's music label) is about Ustads and legends. This allows us to revive the brand in a different way.
Were you looking at doing something like this?
We have been looking at AI for two years. In 2023, we launched Sana, an AI anchor. She was on the 9 pm show with Sudhir (Chaudhary, former editor Aaj Tak) for a while. She's done interviews with Shah Rukh Khan, Kriti Sanon et al and brand endorsements with Samsung, Motorola, etc. At the 2023 G20 summit, she did the bulletins in 12 languages (English, Hindi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, among others). We tried using her to do regular headlines. That was okay, not great. She does the weather bulletins. It is just two different programs talking to each other and it goes on air.
Why an AI anchor? What other uses has AI been put to in your newsroom?
A digital persona can do funny hours. If I could have an anchor in the studio when the newsroom has woken up to a big event like an earthquake, it can be fed in. You have a person in front of the camera. But AI has not kept pace with things we want to do. Sana is not intelligent. You can't have her debate with anyone. The team got AP's (India Today founder Aroon Purie) style sheet from the 1980s and fed that into AI. Now, every story that goes in through the AI content management system has that stylesheet applied to it automatically. The India Today design team has created 200 covers for the magazine and other group print titles, which are either fully AI or AI augmented. We're doing AI twins of primetime anchors like Anjana (Om Kashyap) and Shweta (Singh) for the times when we need them both in the field and studio.
What do the AI experiments mean for costs and revenue?
The company is in a strong space; it is pure media and profitable (TV Today made an operating profit of ₹82 crore in FY24). Right now, AI is an investment but not a burn. There is break-even at times and even some money to be made.
What is the grand plan?
How can we use AI to remove monotony from our team's job and give them more creative roles? Anjana is on the field and in the studio. Can we have her speaking in different languages? Can we get into spaces for which we do not have huge budgets, such as general entertainment channel (GEC) content or music.
GEC content seems far from what you do….
It is interesting because people are already experimenting with AI actors, scripts and music. If I have two AI actors, the script is written in-house, the location is virtual, you can create something. How will the audience take it? I feel the younger audience is more accepting. They can quickly verify what is AI and what is not. A certain generation would be like, 'it's not human creativity.'
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