From giving weather updates to listing out "medicinal" use of banana peels to unpacking a militant attack in Dagestan – the footprint of India’s growing crop of AI news anchors is expanding by leaps and bounds.
Within a few weeks of the India Today group unveiling Sana – the country’s first AI news anchor – in March 2023, a flurry of regional and national news channels launched their avatar of an AI news anchor, sometimes accompanied by much pomp and show. Even state broadcaster Doordarshan joined the bandwagon in May 2024 and introduced not one, but two AI news anchors for DD Kisan.
At the time, Doordarshan had described the latest additions as news anchors that “can read news 24 hours and 365 days without stopping or getting tired”.
Apart from their seemingly godlike capabilities, news outlets turn to AI news anchors for their reported cost-effectiveness.
Speaking to Newslaundry, BIG TV’s CEO, Ajay Reddy Konda, said the initial investment made for the AI development platform was “miniscule” compared to “what his company pays a human anchor” .
“A good human anchor would cost [me] ₹70,000-₹80,000 per month, whereas an AI anchor costs around ₹7,000-₹8,000 per month”, he said. BIG TV introduced Maya, India’s first Telugu AI news anchor, in July 2023.
Paying an upfront fee for developing an AI avatar and then paying monthly subscription charges for operating the avatar makes more “financial sense for news organizations”, Rishab Sharma, co-founder of Personate, a tech outfit, told Newslaundry. Sharma's company played a key role in developing AI anchors for India Today and DD Kisan.
However, despite the monetary advantages AI anchors may bring for news outlets, they are not without problems.
AI-generated content ‘unreliable’
The news channels, Sharma’s company developed AI anchors for, do not rely on computer-generated news presenters and press human intervention into service at almost all levels. The reason: AI–genereated content isn’t always reliable.
“AI anchors hallucinate a lot,” Sharma admits, referring to instances entailing AI “cooking up” details of events that never occurred.
Writers and editors in the newsrooms draft a script and upload it on an AI platform to create an audio which is then lip-synced with the AI anchor, he said.
Most news outlets follow a similar set of steps for programmes involving AI presenters.
“We usually do a five-minute bulletin [with our AI news anchor], and it takes around two to three hours for the preparation, including manually writing and editing the script”, BIG TV’s Konda explained.
To some, the need for human oversight at each step makes the purpose of AI news anchors redundant.
“If humans are writing scripts and feeding them into an AI anchor, then what’s the point?” argued Nivash Jeevanandama, a senior researcher at IndiaAI – a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology initiative on artificial intelligence. “It’s just an artificial doll reading out pre-written content”, he said, referring to AI news anchors.
Even in newsrooms where AI anchors do collate and generate material for news bulletins and other videos, the content is reviewed by a team of editors.
The AI framework Odisha TV’s Lisa employs drafts scripts for bulletins based on real-time updates making production “faster and more efficient", however, all details are “verified and fact-checked”, said Litisha Mangat Panda, a senior business associate at the Odia channel. To ensure no misleading information is put out, especially around sensitive issues, Panda said, “Editors double-check every AI-generated update before it goes on air”.
Even if concerns about the accuracy of the content they generate are put aside, AI news anchors are still far from perfect.
BIG TV’s Konda concedes that bulletins hosted by anchors are “very monotonous” and lack the “emotional nuances” a human presenter brings to the screen.
Issues about AI anchors presenting news also go beyond the confines of the newsrooms.
‘AI news anchors reflect gender bias’
A striking number of AI news presenters in India are female.
For instance, of the six AI news presenters introduced by the India Today group, five are females. Of the five, Naina, who delivers news in Bhojpuri, is also curiously referred to as “Bhojpuri Bhabhi (sister-in-law)” by the group in news bulletins.
Most channels follow the same trend: News18 AI Kaur, Odisha TV’s Lisa, Power TV’s Soundarya, and Big TV’s Maya are all female news presenters.
The composition of the current lot of AI news anchors reflects the gender biases that shape and run through the Indian media industry, experts say.
Speaking to Newslaundry, senior journalist and media analyst Ammu Joseph, said, “Even in traditional TV news, women find it easier to enter the field as anchors rather than as reporters. AI is simply replicating these biases”.
BIG TV’s Konda had no qualms acknowledging the prejudices Joseph speaks of. “Generally, anchors tend to be women. Even in our company, we have 14 anchors – 12 women and only two men,” he said. He even claimed that “people like seeing women anchors read the news” and that they are considered “more visually appealing”.
Odisha TV’s Lisa was deliberately designed as a young Indian woman to make her “relatable”, admits Litisha Mangat Panda, adding “A female persona was seen as approachable, engaging, and trustworthy.”
However, experts insist that such decisions are shaped more by gender stereotypes than the perceived ideas about Indian audiences.
“It plays into a societal norm where female voices are seen as more subservient and accommodating”, Payal Arora, professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University, told Newslaundry.
Arora, who is also the co-founder of FemLab – a project that explores the future of tech through a feminist lens, further pointed out that AI assistants and AI news anchors are predominantly female because “AI technology has historically been designed with male users in mind”.
Experts also take issue with conventional ideas of beauty dictating how female AI news anchors are designed.
“AI anchors seem to be modeled on predictable ideals of beauty rather than journalistic skill,” Ammu Joseph said.
Concurring with Joseph, senior journalist and researcher Pamela Philipose said: “Even if you have intelligent anchors who don’t fit conventional beauty standards, there’s already a bias against them. AI news anchors reinforce a narrow image of what a female presenter should look like – young, slim, fair-skinned, and conventionally attractive”.
Speaking of how technology should take the society forward and not backward, she said, “If AI in journalism continues to prioritize appearance and gendered norms, it won’t just fail to challenge biases, it will actively deepen them.”
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