24 February 2026
Bengaluru
India

AI in Media Forum 2026

Discover. Innovate. Transform.

AI in Media Forum, Bangalore - Programme

February 24 Tuesday

09:30

Opening and welcome

Speakers
Magdoom Mohamed
Managing Director, WAN-IFRA South Asia
K.N.Shanth Kumar
Director, The Printers (Mysore) Pvt.Ltd and Member of the Board, WAN-IFRA
09:35

Keynote: AI in Media & Building OTT Experience

Exploring exploding content supply, collapsing scarcity, user experience challenges, and why most OTT/News business models struggle in an era of unlimited digital abundance.

Speakers
Avinash Mudaliar
Co-founder and CEO of HT Labs, Inventor of Saregama Carvaan
10:15

Panel: AI and Future of News: Media leaders discuss how AI is reshaping journalism, newsroom practices and long-term sustainability of news organisations.

Chair
Prof. Sunil Saxena
Founder-Director of the AI Media Academy
Speakers
Sowbhagyalakshmi K.T
Director, The Printers Mysore
Mukesh Sharma
Co-founder & Dy CEO, Collective Newsroom
Tresa Sherin Morera
Senior Editor- Publishing & Production, Thomson Reuters
Santhosh George Jacob
Coordinating Editor, Manorama Online
11:15

Networking Break

11:45

The rise of AI-Native brand experiences: New formats, deeper engagement, stronger recall. The experiences from Times Internet.

Speakers
Siddhant Satsangi
Head of Growth & AI Strategy, Times Internet
12:15

AI in 2026: Predictions and what's next (virtual session)

Speakers
Ezra Eeman World News Media Congress 2025
Ezra Eeman
AI Expert and Director of Strategy & Innovation, NPO, Netherlands
13:00

Lunch Break

14:00

TollBit State of The Bots: AI Traffic Trends & Monetisation Opportunities

Speakers
Toshit Panigrahi
CEO & Co-Founder, TollBit
14:30

AI Showcase: Best case studies from the WAN-IFRA AI Catalyst South Asia - Cohort 2 Programme. A showcase of the best and most innovative AI projects.

Speakers
Suhas V Bhandari
Product Manager - Deccan Herald & Prajavani
Areena Arora
First Editorial Coder, The Hindu
Nimesh Krishna
Associate News Editor, Manorama News
Shihabudheen Thangal
Assistant Content Manager, Mathrubhumi.com
15:30

Networking Break

16:00

AI changing coding jobs in newsrooms: How low-code and AI-assisted development tools are making technical workflows more accessible. The future of tech roles in news organisations. Experiments from The Hindu.

Speakers
Srinivasan Ramani
Deputy National Editor/Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu newspaper
16:30

Using AI to fact check stories and reach audiences at scale. Case study insights from Logical Indian.

Speakers
Abhishek Mazumdar
Co-Founder, The Logical Indian
17:00

AI-Powered OCR for Advertisement & Sales Intelligence: Transforming Print Ads into Actionable Competitive Data for Revenue Strategy

Speakers
Rahul Pawar
Director, Sakal Media Group
15:30

Summary and closing

Day 1, 24022026

Supporting Publications

For more information, contact

Thai Anban Chokkalingam

General Enquiries / Sponsorship

thai.anban@wan-ifra.org

Chennai, India

Bhagwati Kanmanisubbu

Project Coordinator

bhagwati.kanmanisubbu@wan-ifra.org

Chennai, India