The Role of Cloud and AI in Modern Publishing with Subrat Pati and Shivani Sharma

Chad Watt: Welcome to Ahead in the Cloud where business leaders share what they've learned on their cloud journey. I'm Chad Watt, Infosys Knowledge Institute researcher and writer. Today I'm speaking with Subrat Pati, global head of Infosys Publishing Practice, and Shivani Sharma, head of Cloud Economy and Industry Clouds. Welcome to you both.

Subrat Pati: Thank you. Thank you, Chad. Thanks for having us here.

Shivani Sharma: Thank you, Chad. Very excited for this conversation.

Chad Watt: Subrat, what is the state of third-party cookies in the publishing industry today?

Subrat Pati: Well, Chad, there's actually good news and there is bad news. Some good news is for all the privacy experts, the rules and regulations, and bad news is for the publishers as they're losing out on a key tenet of how they make revenue. Just to step back, publishers generate the majority of their revenues through ad traffic, through browser traffic in their advertising space, and that heavily depends on use of third-party cookies. Now, thanks to data privacy concerns and regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, the third parties are on their way out, granted that Google has extended the shelf life of third-party cookies a little bit more, but the direction for all practical purposes, third-party cookies are out. What does that mean? That means publishers lose out on a vital data based on which the advertisers spend money on them, so publishers are in a bind.

Chad Watt: Shivani, how is industry cloud reshaping the competitive landscape and driving innovation in the market?

Shivani Sharma: A very pertinent question, Chad. Let's start with understanding what exactly do we mean by industry cloud. There are multiple definitions available for the term, but the easiest way to understand industry cloud is to look at it as a verticalized industry solution that leverages power of AI and other next-generation cutting-edge technologies on cloud. They are designed to solve challenges, problems faced by specific particular industry and provides pre-built solutions that help accelerate digitalization journey for our clients. In a nutshell, industry clouds are game-changers for business. If you specifically look at publishing industry, industry clouds are making significant impact and driving innovation by streamlining various processes and enhancing efficiency for publishers. They are helping publishers drive business growth. Let's take a simplistic example, for publishers, industry cloud can help generate new personalized content for their readers, help automate routine tasks, which would in turn help publishers to focus more on the strategic initiative and stay ahead of the competition.

Chad Watt: Now, Subrat, can you expand on the challenges facing publishers? We talked about third party data, now let's talk about first party data.

Subrat Pati: Chad, what's the difference? The difference is, let's say you are just sort of going to a website of your local newspaper, you are not a subscriber, and publishers could get that data and that is called a third party data, but now they need to see you as a first party data, they need you to log in, they need you to create your own credentials. It's not that easy because then publishers, not just small, large, medium, all across, they need to pivot toward a first party data strategic creation.

How are they going to collect the first party data? How are they going to rely on that data and monetize the data through additional ad revenue? It's an incredible change in approach for them, and then they need this first party data strategy and solutions to be scalable, to be compliant with all the rules and regulations and also evolve as they evolve in the digital landscape that Shivani mentioned about. All of them have a direct impact on their advertising revenue, which as you know, is roughly about 50 to 60% and growing of most of the publishers' revenue. Fairly big set of challenges, how can I quickly pivot to a first party data scenario, strategy and solutions in real quick order?

Chad Watt: Shivani, what sets Infosys Cloud Publishing apart?

Shivani Sharma: Infosys Cobalt Publishing Cloud powered by Topaz sets itself apart by bringing together our industry acumen, experience, expertise with the cutting edge technologies, including generative AI. Infosys Publishing Cloud focuses on delivering three key capabilities. Number one, how do you personalize, how do you amplify the reader's experience? How do you optimize revenue and pricing management strategies and solutions, and how do you streamline operations? It brings forward the AI-powered capabilities such as content curation, content recommendation, personalized marketing campaign, extremely important for this industry, dynamic pricing among others. Basically, a suite of capabilities that allow publishers to innovate exponentially. We are making significant investments into industry clouds. To build publishing industry cloud, we have leveraged our capabilities bundled under Topaz, which is Infosys AI framework and Solution and Cobalt, which is Infosys Cloud Framework and Solution. It's built on composable architectural framework, extremely flexible, extremely agile and scalable.

It not only allows publisher to deploy it without having to rewrite code, but also allow to integrate with best of breed tools and services with specific pre-built domain APIs and integration pattern. In fact, our publishing cloud also includes several AI agent, number of large language models that help publishers with four outcomes. Number one, how do you increase conversion rate? How do you improve content? Basically, building right content for the readers.

How do you personalize human experience and how do you reduce revenue leakage? In summary, Cobalt Publishing Industry Cloud powered by Topaz help amplify experience, optimize revenue and reduce operational costs. All in all, deliver better return on investments.

Chad Watt: Subrat, what are the most exciting capabilities that this platform brings to publishers?

Subrat Pati: AI powered decision copy, it helps you build a 360 degree view of your audience, if you're a publisher, that's gold, so that you can understand the consumer's preferences, their needs, their behavior. You can do that through AI powered knowledge graphs, which connects various different pieces of information about your consumer into something that is tangible, visible and clearly actionable. Based on that, you can do multiple things. You can develop targeted marketing campaigns, so on and so forth. Ultimately, we are in the business of trust. The publishers are in the business of trust. We believe our tool helps enhance that trust they deliver to the consumers, and of course it ends up earning them revenue. That's what I think is the most exciting thing about me from this particular ICPC solution.

Chad Watt: Thank you both for your time and for this discussion.

Subrat Pati: Likewise, thank you so much.

Shivani Sharma: The pleasure is all ours, Chad.

Chad Watt: This podcast is part of our collaboration with MIT Tech Review, in partnership with Infosys Cobalt. Visit our content hub at technologyreview.com to learn more about how businesses across the globe are moving from cloud chaos to cloud clarity. Be sure to follow Ahead in the Cloud wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more details and our show notes and transcripts at infosys.com/IKI that's in our podcast section. Until next time, keep learning and keep sharing.