FICCI Frames 2025: ‘Being fearful of AI is not going to help,’ says Kalli Purie 

Being fearful of artificial intelligence (AI) as a new technology will not help, said Vice Chairperson & Executive Editor-in-Chief, India Today Group, Kalli Purie, during a conversation at FICCI Frames 2025 in Mumbai. The best way forward, she said, is to understand and use it wisely. 

Speaking on the second day of the event with Contributing Editor at Business Standard, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, in a session titled ‘Credibility in the Age of Chaos & Media's Role in Shaping India's Identity’, Purie said, “AI, I see it as a new technology, and being fearful of it is not going to help. I think you're going to jump in feet first, get to the depths of the technology and master it before it masters you. So, it allows you to use it, and uses for it will come up as you go along.”

“We had never thought of this idea, but because it is being socialised across the teams, different people on the teams are thinking about how to make their lives more efficient and better, right? One part is that it takes out the monotony – nobody likes to do transcription. You know how boring it is. AI lets you do that," she said. 

Purie said the idea is to use AI to be more efficient and to add new possible revenue streams. AI allows you to create visuals and footage without any shoots, she added. “It's allowing you to create AI anchors to do things when anchors don't want to be on shifts, say at 3 am. It's allowing us to create AI versions of anchors, of course, with permission, so that when they're away or on the field, we can still use them in the studio. AI cloning of their voices so that we can have better voiceovers. So, I think the idea is to increase efficiency, reduce monotony, look at new revenue streams which this could create, but also to be in the centre of the technology and see where it goes. Everyday something new happens," said Kalli Purie. 

Purie said that the organisation has been working with AI for the past two years, and a lot of it has now fallen in place. “We always adopt new technology and we go towards it without fear. We approach technology just how we approach stories,” she said.