Press Trust of India (PTI), the country’s leading news agency, serves several subscribing media organisations that rely on its content for timely publication. Operating in a high-speed environment where rapid delivery is paramount, PTI faced a key challenge: while its coverage was comprehensive, the lack of engaging visual formats, particularly infographics for complex, data-rich stories, impacted subscriber uptake and direct public engagement across its social media platforms.

With digital audiences increasingly consuming news through quick, visual formats, PTI recognised the need for infographics to simplify complex events, highlight data, and contextualise stories for a social media-driven ecosystem. This approach would enhance the value of PTI’s content for its subscribers while also broadening its reach. To achieve this, the news agency established a dedicated infographics team in 2024, called PTI Infographics, under the leadership of Pratyush Ranjan, Chief Editor of Digital Services, AI Integration, and Fact-check.

However, execution was the next challenge. With a lean workforce and resource-intensive production cycles, PTIstruggled to deliver infographics at the speed and scale demanded by daily news. This limited the agency’s ability to provide ready-to-publish visual assets to subscribers consistently and reduced the overall impact of infographics as a driver of engagement and content discovery.

Between January and May 2025, PTI Infographics participated in Google News Initiative’s Data Journalism Lab, powered by Pinpoint and conducted in collaboration with How India Lives. Deepak Chaudhary, sub-editor with the infographics team, was selected for the programme.

The training equipped him, and later his team, with AI tools, including NotebookLM, Gemini, and Google AI Studio, significantly expanding PTI’s infographics production capacity. Tasks that previously required hours of manual review, such as sifting through dozens of articles, are now streamlined through AI-powered summarisation and structured breakdowns of PTI’s own published content.

This transformation boosted both the volume and variety of outputs: from deep-dive explainers to repurposed article-based infographics and quick-turnaround business data graphics. By using AI for research, ideation, illustration prompts, and automated chart/table formatting, PTI now delivers timely, engaging, and data-rich infographics with greater consistency and speed.

Real-time coverage: In breaking news, PTI can now produce infographics packages for all major events, whereas earlier it managed only one or two per day.

Stronger subscriber adoption: More client media organisations are regularly picking up PTI infographics

The adoption of AI has produced measurable improvements:

"Earlier, creating infographics was a slow and resource-heavy process. Even a simple data story could take an entire day, forcing us to prioritise only a few events for visual coverage. As a result, many stories that could have benefited from clear visual explanation remained text-only. Post-training, however, the shift has been dramatic. With AI tools integrated into our workflow, we can now break down complex reports, summarise content, and produce visual-ready material in a fraction of the time. What once took 12-15 hours now takes just a couple of hours. Instead of struggling to deliver one or two visual packages a day, we are now able to cover all major news developments with timely infographics," said Pratyush Ranjan, highlighting the upskilling of PTI’s Infographics team after the Google News Initiative’s Data Journalism Lab programme.

“On a normal news day, PTI now produces infographic slides and packages for all major events throughout the day. The Desk currently generates an average of 18–20 separate infographics and packages per day, covering all important developments. In contrast, earlier, the Desk produced packages for only three or four events a day. In a breaking news situation, this number rises to 30–35 slides and packages. Overall, this represents a 5x–7x increase in our daily output of infographics, explainers, and real-time coverage. Business graphics such as Sensex/Nifty “best & worst performers” now take 30 minutes instead of 1.5 hours - ie 67% faster.”

Talking about future plans, he said: "The focus will be on scaling up, diversifying formats, and deepening AI integration so that PTI Infographics can deliver faster, richer, and more interactive graphics, moving beyond static visuals. Training more team members is also part of the plan, ensuring AI-enabled production becomes the norm, not the exception."