Nielsen sees India as its primary global innovation engine: Report

New Delhi, October 17 (IANS): US-based media analytics firm Nielsen is positioning India as its primary global innovation engine, with over 5,000 employees in the country — roughly half its worldwide workforce — and Bengaluru its largest hub, a new report has said.A report by Daily Sun -- citing Moneycontrol -- said around 75 per cent of Nielsen’s global innovation now comes from India, where the firm has deployed artificial intelligence to automate advertising intelligence.Chief technology officer Anil Goel noted that AI helps automate tracking brand visibility in sports and measure audiences across a fragmented media landscape, it added.According to him, the operations were designed to make India the company's “global innovation centre” rather than a global capability centre."Unlike traditional GCCs where India-based teams work under overseas counterparts, Nielsen's local teams lead products, make decisions and work directly with global clients," according to the report cited by Goel.Though other markets outperform India in revenue terms, Goel said the rapid growth rate of the Indian market makes it count among the company’s top ten growth-potential markets.Nielsen expects its India presence to expand further following the addition of DoubleVerify, which focuses on advertising verification and brand safety, Goel said, also lauding the technology-heavy workforce in the country, which is expanding opportunities to base innovation here.AI made a major impact on Nielsen’s advertising intelligence business, which tracks ad expenditure across television, radio, print, magazines and outdoor media in 30–40 major markets, including India and the US, the report said.“The company used to rely on a combination of automation and manual work to process information, with more than 1,000 employees handling gaps that the technology could not resolve,” the report said.AI and large language models have increased the machines’ contribution in these areas from 80-90 per cent to 97–98 per cent, according to Goel.As more consumers use ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, and AI agents to make decisions, the traditional methods of measuring media consumption face new challenges, reports said.