Kalli Purie shares nine-point AI charter for fixing the rules of AI and news

New Delhi: India Today Group Vice Chairperson Kalli Purie used the “AI and Media: Opportunities, Responsible Pathways, and the Road Ahead” session at India AI Impact Summit 2026 to push a clear ask to governments and tech platforms: fix the rules of the AI-news relationship before trust erodes further.

Purie said her “nine-point charter” was about making sure “AI is done right”.

She opened with what she called the first principle: fair value for journalistic content used in AI systems.

“Publishers cannot be expected to invest in reporting if their work is freely absorbed into AI products without a fair return,” she pointed out.

Her second demand was transparency. Purie asked for clarity on how AI systems “digest” and “metabolise” news.

She said the industry needs to know how content is being used, summarised, reassembled or repackaged inside AI tools. “This is not a side issue. It goes to the heart of accountability and trust,” Purie said.

She then moved to what she described as a democratic principle, not a commercial concession: attribution and traceability.

Purie argued that attribution should not be treated as a favour granted by large platforms. “It should be part of how systems are designed, so citizens can see where information is coming from and how it travels,” she said.

On labelling, Purie questioned why AI disclosure is still left to individual users, adding that voluntary labels only burden responsible actors.

She said bad actors will not disclose that content is AI-generated or AI-altered. She asked why technology companies do not make labelling a built-in requirement, embedded into code, so AI use is automatically marked.

She also called for recognising journalism as a public good, saying society benefits when credible news is produced and distributed widely.

She argued that if journalism is treated only as another content category, its civic role gets diminished and misinformation finds more room to grow.

Purie’s next concern was what today’s algorithms reward, with platforms mostly optimising for virality.

She argued that social impact is not adequately signalled or valued in these systems, and that the ecosystem needs mechanisms that reward stories that deliver social impact, instead of only those that travel fastest.

She also called for putting “real value” on verified content from proper institutions.

Purie argued that verification has a cost, involving editors, fact-checking and standards. “Systems should reflect that value instead of collapsing credible reporting and unverified material into the same pool,” she said.

On AI errors, Purie called for severe penalties for AI hallucinations, instead of treating such mistakes lightly, as if errors are harmless or amusing.

Purie also flagged what she called an “asymmetry of reward and punishment” between legacy media and social media.

She said news organisations operate within established guidelines and accountability frameworks.

She argued that similar standards are breached on social platforms every day, yet the consequences are not comparable.

Purie’s point was about parity: if the ecosystem expects higher compliance from publishers, it must also enforce standards across platforms where misinformation can spread at scale.

Towards the end, Purie described the population’s attention as the “rarest mineral” in the digital economy. She said major technology companies benefit from access to that scarce resource.

If platforms derive value from attention and from news that keeps audiences informed, she asked, what are they giving back to the ecosystem that produces verified public-interest information?