As Artificial Intelligence takes a significant turn in the media industry, Power TV, a famous Kannada channel launched South India’s first AI news anchor. The management named the new AI news presenter “Soundarya” and rolled out her debut news show featuring her on Tuesday.

Mentioning herself as a “robot anchor”, Soundarya begun her debut news show by explaining her take on the impact of AI on Indian TV news industry. She stated, “AI is leaving its footprint in every industry, and the TV news industry is no different. Robot anchors have already taken North Indian news channels by storm and a few of my counterparts have created a stir. Now, South India will get its first robot news anchor through Power TV. I am Soundarya”.

Following on the heels of Power TV, another Kannada news channel, News First Kannada, has also launched its AI-assistant anchor named Maya.

Reign of AI anchors in the Indian TV news industry

Artificial Intelligence has been the buzzword in the news industry for a while since the arrival of Sana, the first AI news anchor of India. The advent has brought a significant shift in outlook on news channels. Many regional Indian newsrooms have embraced cutting-edge technology by launching their first-of-its-kind AI-powered news anchors this year.

The India Today group rolled out the country’s first AI news anchor, Sana for the Aaj Tak news channel in March. In April, the Malayalam news channel MediaOne TV also unveiled a male AI news anchor Evan. OTV, an Odia news channel recently introduced their AI news presenter Lisa, which stirred the internet. Lisa is able to present the news both in Odia and English effortlessly.

However, all these AI news anchors are still in their experimental stage and are expected to take some time until they take over the breaking news segments. Currently these anchors are mainly dealing with short news bulletins. Sometimes the voiceovers recorded by human journalists are lip-synced by the AI presenter.