What do a school bathroom door, a synthetic voice in Tamil, and an AI quiz on the Mahakumbh have in common? In 2025 South Asia, they’re all media products.

At the INMA South Asia News Media Festival in Mumbai last week, publishers showed off a dizzying array of innovations that go well beyond journalism — spanning AI-generated explainer videos, e-commerce inside e-papers, and brand-funded learning hubs in schools.

This isn’t just product thinking. It’s reinvention thinking — and South Asia is getting there faster than most.

Here are 50 ways news companies in South Asia are leading the way on media innovation:

Newsroom products and content innovations 

1. Sarthi chatbot (Amar Ujala): An AI-powered chatbot launched during Mahakumbh to answer user queries on festivals, events, and services. Later expanded across verticals to provide AI-based search experiences.

2. Srishti AI anchor (Amar Ujala): A virtual anchor used to automate overnight news bulletins and video updates, freeing up journalists for deep-dive explainer content.

3. Real-time AI quiz engine (Amar Ujala): A system that generates quizzes based on articles being read, increasing engagement time and gamifying content consumption.

4. AI-based video assembly tool (Amar Ujala): Allows journalists to stitch together multiple video clips, mute segments, and add captions for fast publishing of breaking news visuals.

5. Smart CMS with content tagging and SEO scoring (Jagran): Uses AI to evaluate stories for editorial quality and SEO potential, helping editors optimise packaging and headline performance.

6. AI-powered habit formats (Jagran): Gamified modules, calculators, and microsites built around recurring user needs, designed to drive registrations and repeat visits.

7. Author-level content performance dashboards (Jagran): Newsroom staff can now see how their stories impact customer lifetime value, bridging journalism and monetisation.

8. GenAI translation and summarisation (multiple brands): Publishers like Amar Ujala and Jagran are using GenAI to auto-translate stories across Indian languages and create SEO summaries and headlines.

9. Personalised home page with reward system (HT Media): HT’s logged-in home page includes live widgets (e.g., sports scores, stocks), curated editorial feeds, and gamified rewards (“Now Coins”).

10. AI-assisted visual explainers (Times of India): TOI’s product team is using AI to assist journalists in building visually rich, snackable content formats aimed at mobile-first users.

11. Multimodal explainers with AI auto-captioning (The Hindu, planned): Creation of explainer videos with AI-generated captions and voiceovers in local languages for deeper regional reach.

12. Jagran Pulse — AI-powered engagement scoring tool (Jagran): An internal tool that ranks content by potential engagement value across platforms, helping editors optimise distribution.

13. Daily custom dashboards for reporters (Jagran): Each journalist receives a personalised dashboard showing story performance, user sentiment, and loyalty impact.

14. AI-generated article previews for homepage curation (The Times of India): System generates summaries and visual thumbnails, enabling editors to A/B test home page layout and prioritisation.

15. Vernacular-language push notifications based on behaviour (Amar Ujala): Customised alerts sent via app and web in Hindi and regional languages, timed to user reading patterns.

16. Weekend special newsletters curated by AI (HT Media, pilot): AI-generated newsletters tied to lifestyle themes (travel, books, cinema), tailored to individual readers.

17. AI-powered SEO audit bots (multiple publishers): Crawlers that audit headlines, metadata, and keyword use in real-time — and nudge content teams to optimise.

18. Content clipping and auto-recommend engine (The Times of India and Jagran): Articles broken into fragments by AI (quotes, facts, sections), which then feed into recommendation widgets.

19. In-article voice summaries (multiple publishers, planned): AI-readout of top stories using synthetic voices in Hindi, Tamil, and English to appeal to mobile users on-the-go.

20. Rewind360, daily recap product (Indian Express, proposed): A new storytelling format under planning: combines text, audio, and short video to recap the day’s biggest stories in under three minutes.

Advertising and commercial innovation

21. Location-based ad bundling (EY India recommendation, HT, others): A future-forward concept of selling a complete geography (e.g., Mumbai or Navi Mumbai) by bundling print, digital, OOH, radio, and programmatic in one package.

22. SME-focused ad partnerships (EY India recommendation): New outreach models and data-sharing alliances designed to make it easier for publishers to monetise India’s 63M+ SMEs.

23. Image-layered ads with AI filters (Amar Ujala): Ad tech that places display bands on images while automatically excluding infographics, maintaining editorial integrity.

24. QR code performance ads (example shared by IPG Mediabrands on client campaigns): Integrated print-digital ad campaigns where QR scans lead to hidden offers, product videos, or e-commerce landing pages.

25. Moment-based print campaigns (example shared by IPG Mediabrands on Century Mattress): Campaigns only activated after Olympic victories, linking real-world moments to brand messages via print.

26. Brand-funded educational inserts (multiple newspapers): Used in campaigns focused on health, insurance, or financial literacy in vernacular papers, sometimes with coupons or gamified learning.

27. Localised “baby Robb Report” supplements (EY recommendation): Suggested luxury/lifestyle print formats for high-net-worth readers to attract premium advertising categories.

28. AI-powered ad copy suggestions (Amar Ujala, in testing): A tool suggesting alternate ad copy, CTA language, and layout for SME advertisers based on historical engagement.

29. Category-targeted ad editions (Lokmat): Print supplements for real estate, automotive, and wellness, supported by first-party audience data and QR-linked CTAs.

30. “Sponsor the Edition” product (Indian Express Group, proposed): A branded takeover opportunity: sponsor an entire print/digital edition, with thematic alignment and visual integrations.

31. Contextual commerce inserts in e-paper (HT Media and Sakal): Daily product round-ups and contextual e-commerce promos inside e-papers, tied to current headlines (e.g., budget, festival, sports).

32. Ad effectiveness A/B testing in print vs digital (IPG Mediabrands clients): Live experimentation across different cities to prove ROI in print vs. digital — with empirical lift measurement.

33. Ad storytelling through carousels in e-papers (Prothom Alo): Swipeable ad formats inside e-paper replicating carousel storytelling from Instagram, increasing time-on-ad and CTR.

Enterprise-wide and cross-functional products

34. WISR school media inventory platform (Wondrlab): A first-of-its-kind marketplace where schools can list physical infrastructure (washrooms, canteens, doors, etc.) for ad campaigns and social initiatives.

35. Contextual school campaigns (WISR x Brands): Examples include Luxor pens, Sports4One championships, and NUA’s period education — all targeted by age, gender, and infrastructure via dashboards.

36. Unified ID and SSO platform (Jagran): SSO product enabling user identification across all properties to power cross-site personalisation and data enrichment.

37. Personalised newsletters (HT Media and The Times of India): AI-curated newsletters built around specific interests, user behaviour, and consumption patterns.

38. Creator-led video studios (Indian Express Group, in planning): Efforts to build studios and hire talent capable of translating serious journalism into Reels, Shorts, and visual explainers for social media.

39. AI moderation for UGC (Amar Ujala): In development: internal tool for moderating user-submitted videos/images before publication, using AI to flag inappropriate content.

40. Automated editorial suggestions (Jagran and Amar Ujala): AI recommends what to publish next based on performance, gaps in coverage, and user interest patterns.

41. Brand-funded community platforms (EY recommendation): Proposed model where publishers create vertical-specific communities (e.g., health, education, local governance) with ongoing sponsor integration.

42. Integrated audio briefings across platforms (Sakal and Amar Ujala): Daily audio digests published across app, WhatsApp, Alexa, and smart speakers — same product, multiple touchpoints.

43. Regional audience data warehouse (Amar Ujala and Jagran): Publisher-controlled clean rooms for regional user data, combining on-site behaviour, transaction logs, and campaign performance.

44. First-party interest graph for users (HT Media): Tracks interest tags at user level (e.g., cricket, tax, veganism), powering recommendations and personalised ad delivery.

45. Cross-product engagement heat maps (Jagran and Dream11): Visualisation layer that shows how users move between properties (e.g., news → health site → horoscope app) to inform cross-sell and monetisation.

46. Branded media-learning microsites for schools (WISR platform): Templated content hubs where brands sponsor modules like “financial literacy for teens” or “nutrition for girls,” co-delivered by publishers.

47. In-app AI agent for customer service (HT Media and Dream11): Uses LLMs to address user queries about subscriptions, contests, paywall access — reducing human dependency.

48. Internal LLM for policy documents and brand guidelines (Amar Ujala): Trained on internal style guides and company documents to assist new hires and editors with quick answers.

49. “Answerbot” for internal queries (Times Internet, in testing): Chatbot trained on company manuals, workflows, and KPIs — helping onboarding and internal troubleshooting.

50. Personalised subscription pricing engine (HT and Sakal): Dynamic pricing based on reading behaviour, geography, device type, and engagement history — like airline pricing.

The future of media isn’t arriving — it’s already in beta

If there’s one thing the INMA South Asia News Media Festival made clear, it’s this: South Asian publishers aren’t waiting for the future to be delivered — they’re building it from scratch.

From AI-powered dashboards to commerce-layered content, from school ad marketplaces to voice-read news summaries, the line between newsroom, tech lab, and enterprise is rapidly dissolving. Innovation here isn’t confined to a product team or tucked inside a “labs” division. It’s cultural. It’s operational. And increasingly, it’s commercial.

As these 50 clever new products show, media companies across the region are thinking like technologists, acting like startups, and delivering like platforms — all while staying rooted in public service journalism. It’s not just about surviving disruption; it’s about designing their own version of what's next.

Call it the South Asia stack. Or just call it what reinvention actually looks like.

This article was written with the assistance of AI tools. All content has been reviewed and edited by a human editor to ensure accuracy and adherence to journalistic standards.

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