Fragmentation in the media marketplace is at an unbelievable level: Karthik Rao, CEO Nielsen

I took over the role in our 100th year as a company, so it’s a significant moment for us to create a new executive team for the next 100 years for Nielsen. I carry that burden and opportunity on my shoulders.  The biggest thing that matters right now is the level of fragmentation in the media marketplace. It is at an unbelievable level. It’s one of the reasons why we’re here in India now. Because India to me represents the forefront of this fragmentation.  A big part of this was taking a step back to say, what do we need to invest in? And what do we need to retool as a company to be ready for the next 100? We felt like we were trying to play catch up. A big part was retooling the company. The other thing that played out at the same time I took the role was the advent of large language models. We knew it was an important tailwind and a big opportunity. And now we’re starting to capitalise on that in a big way.

Privacy is foundational to our company. Our models adapt to whatever is consented to be used in a particular market. For instance, email addresses can be used in certain markets. In certain markets, only IP addresses can be used, while both can be used in some markets. So we can translate and adapt to country specific laws. The onus is on us to be able to make sure that we’re ultimately able to use probabilistic techniques so that you get the most accurate representation of who was behind the consumption. We work with those who have the same standard in the core values of the company around how to deal with data

This is an area where we have spent a fair amount of time. The general AI models have largely consumed all the data that’s publicly available. That has already happened. So what is the next level of reasoning intelligence that’s going to be created? It will have to become vertical-specific.  And to get vertical-specific, you need to use proprietary data that nobody else has access to. AI is nothing without food and now the food is going to want very proprietary data  And that’s where we live in. So we see this as a perfect moment for our company to create new products using AI around the entire value system for content- from creation to monetisation, and the same for advertising. One of the technologies we are also investing heavily in is clean rooms, where some of our partners, want to use their proprietary data only for their training. They don’t want to make it available publicly to others. And we are offering our models they can use in a clean room environment to get insights for their business.

We’re super excited. Being born in India, this is my land and the best natural resource of this country is talent and what complements that is also the business we’re in, which is all things media. India has the most complex media environment. If we develop products for the Indian market with the level of complexity, we can scale that to other markets around the world. India also has the best natural resources for our business talent. We will be creating jobs in the thousands. The combination of the two things is why we will double down in India. 

We are excited by the marketplace itself from a consumer dynamics perspective. The level of complexity that we see here is super valuable for us. The discovery problem is very unique here, print media continues to perform for now, cable continues to decline, connected television and OTT continue to rise, and broadcast continues to perform. These things are all super valuable for us and we believe this fragmentation is a big business opportunity for us. We work with clients but this is a renewed focus for us to be significantly faster at what we do and provide new solutions.