How The Hindu is using AI to boost content visibility and subscriptions
The Hindu has a discovery problem.
Like many long-established publishers now operating in crowded digital markets, the 148-year-old Indian news organisation produces far more journalism than most readers will ever encounter.
More than 600 stories are published across its titles every day, yet even its most engaged users typically see only a fraction of that output.
In one of the world’s most competitive and fragmented news environments, that gap between production and consumption has implications that go well beyond readership; It directly affects subscriptions.
“The number one challenge our organisation sees is getting users who are willing to pay,” said Pundi S. Sriram, Chief Product Officer and Business Head, STEP, at The Hindu Group, speaking at our ongoing World News Media Congress in Marseille.
“India is a very noisy, active marketplace. There are many, many sources of news. Users by and large see news as commoditised.”
In that context, producing high-quality journalism is not enough on its own. The challenge, he suggested, is ensuring readers consistently encounter enough value in that journalism to justify paying for it.
That thinking has shaped how The Hindu approaches artificial intelligence. Rather than treating AI primarily as a content generation tool, the publisher has focused on using it to improve discovery – helping readers find relevant stories, reshaping how those stories are presented, and delivering them in formats that better match different audience behaviours.
To address that, The Hindu has organised its AI efforts around three areas:
- Format: Adapting how stories are presented for different reading preferences
- Surface: Creating personalised points of discovery across the app
- Modality: Using formats such as audio where they serve a specific audience need
Together, these approaches are designed to improve discovery, increase engagement and reinforce recurring value for readers, a critical factor in subscription retention.
Over the past year, these interventions have contributed to a 50 percent increase in app engagement, according to him. The Hindu’s app now accounts for close to half of the group’s subscription revenue.
Making long-form journalism more accessible
One of the earliest applications of AI at The Hindu has been focused on how stories are packaged for readers with different levels of time, intent and attention.
For selected long-form articles, the publisher now provides AI-generated summaries at the top of the page, typically around 200 words, alongside the full story.
Beneath that, readers also see AI-generated questions that act as alternative entry points into the article, allowing them to jump directly to sections aligned with their interests.
The idea initially prompted internal concern. If readers were given condensed versions of stories, would they still engage with the full article?
According to Sriram, the outcome has been the opposite.
“What we’ve seen now is actually far greater consumption of our premium stories. The fact that our readers have the freedom to make that choice, rather than it being chosen for them, has been a big part of making this work for them,” he said.
Rather than replacing long-form journalism, the format appears to have expanded the ways in which readers navigate it.
Today, around 35 percent of premium users consume stories through these AI-assisted formats.
While AI plays a significant role in restructuring content, Sriram stressed that editorial oversight remains central, with human review before publication.
Finding the stories readers miss
If format changes how readers engage with individual stories, surface design determines whether they encounter them at all.
Sriram pointed to a structural challenge facing modern newsrooms: the sheer volume of output relative to what any single reader can realistically consume.
To address this, the publisher has developed multiple AI-driven discovery surfaces within its app, designed to surface journalism that might otherwise remain invisible to readers.
One of these is a “Trending” section powered by machine-learning models. It now accounts for around 13 percent of total app page views.
Alongside this, The Hindu has built a personalised push-notification system based on user behaviour rather than explicitly stated preferences.
“Users get push notifications that are personalised based on their past behaviour, not based on user preferences,” Sriram said.
Together, these discovery mechanisms – trending surfaces and personalised notifications – contribute roughly 30 percent of total app page views.
The objective, he said, is straightforward: to ensure that strong journalism does not go unseen simply because it is not surfaced at the right moment.
Choosing where audio makes sense
The third strand of The Hindu’s approach, modality, reflects a more selective use of AI, particularly in audio.
Rather than converting all content into audio formats, the publisher has focused on specific use cases where audio clearly adds value.
One example is its editorials, which are widely read, and often studied, by candidates preparing for India’s civil services examinations. These pieces are dense, and frequently require additional context to fully unpack.
To address that need, The Hindu developed AI-assisted audio explainers designed to complement editorial content and support deeper understanding for that specific audience.
The response, he noted, has been strong: a 24 percent completion rate, which he described as unusually high for audio products.
“It’s not about plastering audio generation across the board,” he said. “It’s about finding specific use cases where engagement signals already exist and the format solves a clear user problem”
Demonstrating value before renewal
Across format, surface and modality, the underlying logic remains consistent: improving discovery in order to deepen engagement, and using that engagement to reinforce the value of a subscription over time.
For The Hindu, AI is less about automation than relevance, ensuring readers consistently encounter journalism that matters to them, and in formats that make it easier to engage with.
In a market where publishers are still working to build willingness among readers to pay for digital news, Sriram argued, the relationship between discovery, engagement and revenue is becoming increasingly direct.
“Everything we do today is revenue tomorrow.”
