India Gets Its First AI-News Anchor 'Lisa', What It Means For Media Industry

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A news anchor decked up and clad in Odisha's handloom saree and presents news both in Odia and English for OTV Network's television and digital platforms. Sounds pretty normal right? But, will it make a difference if we say that it is AI-generated?

Recently, Odisha TV, which is an Odisha-based private news channel has launched an AI-generated news anchor named 'Lisa' and the internet is divided.

OTV is gifting Odia television journalism its first Artificial Intelligence (AI) news anchor, Lisa, mentions the company's statement. According to reports, Lisa can speak numerous languages but for the time being, she will present news in Odia and English languages only for this network's digital and television platforms.

Also, if you like Lisa, you will be able to find and follow her on major social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter among others.'Efforts are underway to make Lisa more proficient in Odia in the coming days. You can find and follow Lisa on all the prominent social media platforms like Instagram, and Facebook, among others,' says the release.

While talking to PTI, the company's Digital Business Head, Litisha Mangat Panda said that training Lisa was a gigantic task but they were successful in doing it. 'However, we are still working on it. We are hoping to get her trained to the level in which she could interact with others easily,' she said.

Apart from this, this year in April a Kuwait-based media outlet, Kuwait News debuted its first artificial intelligence (AI) generated news presenter 'Fedha'.

'Fedha' appeared on the Twitter account of the Kuwait News website as an image of a woman, who has light-coloured hair uncovered, wearing a black jacket and white T-shirt. Kuwaiti News is affiliated with the Kuwait Times and it was founded in 1961 as the Gulf region's first English-language daily.

How AI Can Impact The Media Industry

The global AI in media & entertainment market size is expected to reach USD 99.48 billion by 2030, according to a new report by Grand View Research Inc. This market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.9% from 2022 to 2030.

While the rapid rise of AI globally comes with a promise of benefits in healthcare and helps one with mundane tasks, some also fear the damages it can cause to certain industries by becoming a threat to human jobs, artistic integrity and the spread of disinformation.

We all have heard of AI today especially when the internet is flooded with AI content, plus the hype around it and is intriguing to see how it is slowly taking over our lives. Well, the broadcasting industry is the new one to tune in with this technology.

Blame it on some optimistic applications, utility or accuracy, AI and machine learning (ML) technologies that have come into commercial use today.

Tools powered by AI are already taking over the role of traditional journalists and are delivering articles and reports within a matter of minutes. But, according to industry experts, it does come with limitations, and therefore, the data and analysis produced by such tools can be misleading and inaccurate.

AI is programmed to generate news stories and articles from the structured data and therefore, all one has to do is create templates for reporting on certain topics like sports, crime, entertainment, etc, and AI will then populate with relevant numbers. This automation will be time efficient but can cost human journalists their jobs in the future.