Prannoy Roy, the former executive co-chairperson and one of the founders of news broadcaster NDTV, recently launched his new venture ‘deKoder’ (dekoder.com). It is an AI-based website and app designed to simplify complicated global issues, ranging from elections to significant world events. The content on the app and website will be avialable in 15 different Indian languages.
Roy in his launch video of deKoder on YouTube says the website and the app will have the largest stock of information and data on elections and world events. Addressing viewers, Roy said, “The aim of artificial intelligence on deKoder is to enable you to do your own analysis of the events. We hope that the deKoder empowers you and you enjoy the deKoder experience.” The launch of the app and website will be executed in a phased manner over the next few weeks and months.
AI is the latest trend in every sector. The digital INMA South Asia Media Summit held on 10 and 11 August 2023 had discussed the use of AI in news media.
Shailesh Kumar, chief data scientist at the Centre of Excellence in Al/ML, Reliance Jio, India, at the summit, commented on the shift of news generation from human to AI and the need to adapt to it instead of being wary of it. Similarly in 2023, the Wan-Ifra conferences in Delhi and Vienna, the INMA World News Congress in New York in May, and various other conferences from across the world highlighted the importance of AI in news media.
The first episode of the discussion with Roy has already been uploaded on YouTube. The episode with Ruchir Sharma, an investor and author, discussed the top trends of 2024. One of the interesting aspects of the episode is that its been released in a vertical format as well, to suit more mobile devices. To leverage the different Indian languages, deKoder has launched language-specific handles on Instagram – deKoder Tamil, deKoder Telugu, and deKoder Hindi.
Roy quit as director of the board of NDTV’s promoter RRPR on November 29 last year. A month later, soon after the Adani Group became the largest shareholder in NDTV, Roy and his wife Radhika Roy sold 27.26% of their remaining 32.26% to the conglomerate.
