With the highest number of uploads in the world, former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant believes, news consumption too is headed towards being completely digital and AI will play a huge role in making that happen
“I can access news in real-time. By the time I get the news in the newspaper the next day it is too late in the day, it is outdated, it is jaded and by that time over the night, many other things have happened in other parts of the world which you have to catch up with. So, my view is that we are adding an internet user every three seconds. We have made a huge transformation”, Kant said at the Storyboard18 DNPA Conclave and Awards 2024.
Kant’s enthusiasm about digital news consumption stems from India’s remarkable progress in the digital sphere, boasting the highest number of internet and smartphone users globally.
“We have the highest number of uploads in the world. We are going to be the biggest internet planet in the world and you will see that everyone in this country with a billion smartphones, 900 million smartphones now, and India will become the biggest smartphone user. India will become the biggest internet user,” he added.
Kant also shed light on how technological advancements have affected the news industry. He highlights the importance of media outlets to adapt new revenue models and expand their reach to more groups and individuals.
He believes AI and Gen AI will play a pivotal role in making the news content reach diverse audiences speaking local dialects, creating an all-inclusive news environment.
Citing examples of Bhashini AI, an AI-based translation tool, which breaks language barriers using AI, NLP, and crowdsourcing to enable real-time translation between different Indian languages he said, “Bhashini is enabling the use of voice in rural areas to access all government schemes and access your ability to fill up forms, provide those forms, get the benefit of all government schemes in the local dialect without even reading by sheer voice.”
“The challenge for you will be able to provide your voice in the local dialect, and local language, you may be printing in Hindi but you should be able to provide it in Malayalam, Tamil, and local dialect using the power of AI and generative AI, and that will be the next big disruption that will take place in the world of news,” he added.
The central idea of Kant’s narrative revolved around India’s withdrawal from bigoted models controlled by large tech conglomerates such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Tencent, and Alibaba.
He praised India’s remarkable efforts in creating a digital infrastructure defined by open APIs and interoperability, ensuring extensive access to financial transactions and digital services.
Kant also lauds India’s growing payment system and the swift speed by which the country is moving towards a cashless economy.
“Last year we did about 128 billion transactions, China was second with just 26 billion transactions but from that, we went into cashless paperless credit, we went into doing wealth creation, into stock markets, tier two, tier three. Zerodha grew, Upstox grew, and then you had new digital insurance which is fully digital, and the cost of acquisition of customers has fallen in India very rapidly”, he added.
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