An important session on the topic AI and Media: Opportunities, Responsible Pathways and the Road Ahead was organized today at the India-AI Summit 2026 held at Bharat Mandapam in the capital Delhi. The session was attended by Amar Ujala Group MD Tanmay Maheshwari, Kali Puri from India Today Group, Pawan Aggarwal from Dainik Bhaskar Group, Mohit Jain from Bennett Colman Group (Times of India), Navneet LV from The Hindu, Robert Whitehead from INMA and Ashish Pherwani from EY Group. All the media stalwarts expressed their views on the role of AI amid the changing nature of media.
View AI as a tool, not a replacement
Amar Ujala Group MD Tanmay Maheshwari said that AI is like any other technology for us, every technology has both good and bad aspects. Nuclear is the biggest example of this, which can cause destruction and can also be used as clean energy. It’s the same with AI. You have to connect it to the human layer.
In our organization, AI is used to improve the content. How to do in-depth research on an article, how to further increase the quality of any news? That’s why we see AI as a tool and not as a replacement. We use it to improve the quality of our content.
AI will not replace anyone – Maheshwari
He further said that ultimately our aim is to provide better content to our users. We never think that AI will replace anyone. Content layer is the most important layer in the entire AI engine, followed by data layer, processing layer, application layer, power energy layer. Being a responsible organization we know that this layer will be used to make the process of content production more effective and automated. Through this, in-depth content can be automated, and many autonomous tasks can also be handled easily. This will save time and that time can be used to create better, research-based and quality content.
Maheshwari was asked whether the context still works correctly when the model is used in Indian languages? He replied no, the accuracy in the language model is 50 to 55%. He recalled a statement by Open AI CEO Sam Altman that AI will end the world, but by then we can create many big companies. It may seem like a dark humor to us. But whenever we innovate something, for tomorrow, for the coming generation, we are only participants, we got this world and now we will pass it on to the other generation.
It is important to maintain credibility amidst the use of AI
Kali Puri, vice-president, India Today Group, said digital media brands shape opinions. Therefore AI is very important for us. It is important to understand how to maintain credibility through the use of AI. We are doing it on the model of AI sandwich in which only a human being is confirming the last step.
