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Students were not allowed to use mobile phones in public schools. It happened over 20 years ago. The issue at present is whether to allow into classrooms the new technology of AI, which can set the students back further than mobile phones.

Students are guided by chatbot tutors. They tend to replace classroom educators — the teachers. Tech companies are interested in selling the hardware and software to schools. They promise personalized learning and improved performance by introducing economical laptops in the classrooms. Sales departments earned revenues, but taxpayers’ money was being used without benefit to students. Instead of improving performance, laptops declined the scores of the students. Excessive screentime harms more. More research is necessary here. AI can facilitate organisations to serve customers better. However, whether it can serve students better is a moot point.

ChatGPT can draft student essays but may affect their critical thinking. Both writing and math skills deteriorate over a period of time. It is necessary to do more research before allowing AI products. There should be constant monitoring of AI implementation in schools.

DBB is Omnicom’s 76-year-old advertising and communication network. By the end of 2025, Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group plan to merge. Omnicom Group, it is rumored, may phase out the legacy DDB agency, at least in some countries.

DDB defined advertising in the latter part of the 20th century with memorable work on brands such as Johnson and Johnson, McDonald’s and Volkswagen. Omnicom is seriously considering the very best solutions for the future.

It is an issue that affects the entire ad industry. Are global legacy agencies on the way to being extinct? Just two years ago WPP terminated Wunderman Thompson brand. Publicis and Leo Burnett would form Leo entity.

Legacy agencies flourished on the basis of the differentiating factor — creativity. These days there are many competing creative agencies. Besides creativity, agencies now require speed, data fluency and measurable business outcomes. Legacy agencies have just one attribute – their heritage.

Mergers are attempted to simplify the complexity of the structure of legacy agencies. A merged entity should have a single powerful value proposition. There is an identity crisis for the ad firms. The creative agencies are getting transformed as a network. They lose in the process their creative personality and become a service bouqet. People drawn from finance would like to create a profitable merged entity. This process wipes out the creative cultures. Marketers will have to choose their agencies very carefully.

There is also an issue of clients asking for spectacular results from creative agencies, but without increasing the budgets. Clients transfer the key projects to independent agencies, and routine work to retainer agencies. It is tough on both kinds of agencies.

Network agencies have an advantage — delivery at scale. But this has also become a weakness in current marketing environment. There are shrinking revenues. Network agencies are, therefore, compelled to scale down.

Advertising is making a shift to performance marketing. Creative agencies excelled at brand building. New age advertisers give utmost priority for performance marketing. Brand building takes a backseat.

Creatives may win the hearts. But they should learn to win the wallets. What is needed is new creative thinking. The thinking must look impressive both on reels and paper, and at the same time, must also improve business metrics.

Advertising is through reinvention. AI has already taken over the grunt work. Consultancies have business credibility. In-house creative teams are producing routine creative work at speed. Agencies have to evolve, or else they will be converted into museums or production shops. Ceativity must earn its right to sit in the boardroom.

Tsinghua University, Beijing is a leading institution in science and engineering. There is quiet but valuable work being done in the Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence. Researchers try to decode the working of the human mind.

This university is a combination of Stanford, MIT and Carnegie Mellon all rolled into one. DeepSeek’s arrival has stunned the tech industry. There is newfound confidence in young researchers. The University has provided manpower to the country’s four top startups. It has established a lead in subjects such as engineering, AI, computer science and chemical engineering.

The government wants to encourage advances in AI, and provides tax breaks, subsidies backed by supportive policies. The researchers are hailed as national heroes. Xi, the Chinese president is a graduate of this University. Its graduates play a role in AI companies, including Alibaba Group and ByteDance. Researchers have developed an AI Chip called Accel to compete with GPUs from Nvidia.

They have developed a drug discovery engine called Ddrug-CLIP and a training protocal known as Absolute Zero Reasoner enabling AI models to learn on their own, without any human-fed data.

The faculty and students create IP — 100 most cited AI research papers. They receive more patents per year than any other US institute. The University got almost 5000 patents of AI and ML between 2005 and 2024. Almost a thousand patents have been received last year. There is staggering innovation in less than a decade. It shows how China is advancing to be an AI superpower.

The AI journey in China starts at elementary school level. It creates a mere tech-savvy student pool, There were 3.57 million students well versed in STEM.

Still the most influential AI patents are held by the US. The US models are top performers. Harvard and MIT are still ranked higher. Yet, it is a fact that China is closing the gap,

The Indian parliament passed four labour codes five years ago, and they have been brought into effect in November 2025. The aim is to modernize working conditions, strengthen wage protection, improve productivity and accelerate job creation.

Between August 2019 and September 2020, 29 labour laws were consolidated into four comprehensive codes. The rules will be issued shortly, and the codes will be implemented. It is a long overhaul of India’s employment law framework.

As labour is a concurrent subject, the states will frame their own rules and supplement the central Act.

The Code of Wages, 2019 significantly widens legal protections for workers. It extends both floor wage and minimum wage coverage to all employees. There would be clarity in wage definition, payment timelines and uniform enforcement across sectors.

The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 introduces greater flexibility for firms in managing labour, particularly in manufacturing. It raises the thresholds for retrenchment, layoffs or closure without government approval from 100 to 300 workers. The earlier limits discouraged scaling up the revised norms are expected to help firms expand operations and create more jobs in the long run.

Under the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 broadens safety coverage across all sectors. It mandates double wages for overtime, limits working hours to eight per day and work weeks to six days. It also lifts restrictions on women working between 7 pm and 6 am, provided employers ensure adequate safety arrangements. It will lead to more female participation in sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, hospitality and IT services.

The Code on Social Security, 2020 extends social protection to unorganized sector workers who were outside formal welfare systems. The benefits extended are insurance, health and maternity cover, PF and skill upgradation. It also defines gig workers, platform workers and aggregators for the first time. Aggregators are expected to contribute 1-2 per cent of their annual turnover (capped at 5 percent of their payouts to workers) to a welfare fund supporting social security and accident compensation. This includes the travel between home and work.

To ease employer compliances, the Codes introduce, single registration, a pan-India license and a single return. ESIS cover has been expanded, though there is one employee doing hazardous work and it is voluntary for units with fewer than workers.

India has introduced global standards. Implementation across states will be an issue. Ther should be coordination.

Some provisions favour business flexibility at the cost of worker rights. (especially strike rights and contract labour).

There is a global merger of Omnicom and Interpublic (IPG). Prasoon Joshi will lead Omnicom Advertising Services in India. Dheeraj Sinha will head McCann World group, India as CEO The deal closed in November, 2025 and IPG now ceases to exist. FCB folds into McCann.

Omincom’s flagship agencies include BBDO, DDB, TEWA, OMD and PHD. IPG has under its umbrella McCann, FCB, MullenLowe and IPG Media Brands.

WPP is the French holding company which has agencies like Grey.

Omincom has now become after the merger the biggest marketing communications agency group in the world. It has a combined revenue of $ 25 billion. The place was formerly held by Publicis which snatched it form WPP in February 2024.

In India, IPG is three times larger than Omnicom and WPP is double the size of IPG. After the merger, they will be a formidable rival to WPP, but still the merged group will not be at number one spot.

Omnicom and IPG’s merger have decided to relegate three iconic ad agencies to the history books — DDB, MullenLowe and FCB. These brands defined the country’s advertising character in the 1980s and 1990s — the brands that stood out were Lintas, Mudra and Ulka. Omincom has retired FCB Ulka and DDB Mudra. Lintas has been given a new lease of life by rebranding it as TBWA/Lintas. However, it may be retired in future. The ad agencies which were known for brand building ability do not seem to be able to sustain their own brands.

DDB Mudra has not survived the Omincom axe. Its retirement marks the end of Indian advertising’s golden age. DDB Mudra did valuable work on brands like Rasna, Vimal, Dhara and Nestle Polo.

The whole brunt will not borne by the brand names, and legacies culture too will be affected for clients and employees.

The consolidation has its focus on cost reduction, and is treated as efficiency. Advertising is an industry where 70 per cent of cost is people. There are loss of jobs and demoralized manpower. It is a moot point whether in a declining industry, mergers will revive the business.

WPP which was once a giant, faces stiff competition from the merged entity of Omnicom and Publicis Groupe. WPP has witnessed a decline of 6 per cent. WPP still leads in India. Things could change in the next 3-5 years.

The entire advertising ecosystem is very fragile. It is a challenge to get good talent. Clients refuse to pay for creative work. There are opportunities for young talents to shift to OTT channels.

Large independent agencies such as Rediffusion and Madison World not only survive but thrive in an industry dominated by global networks. Independent agencies need to find a competitive advantage over network agencies. Rediffusion has been strengthening its AI-led offerings.

Globally, Omnicom (plus IPG) will be the largest network. WPP and Publicis will follow closely behind. The other key networks will be Dentsu and Havas. These holding companies’ command 80 per cent of the world’s advertising market.

In India WPP will retain its number one position followed by Omnicom and Publicis. There would be a few independent agencies such as Rediffusion and Madison World.

Filmmakers, animators and content creators are increasingly turning into prompt-driven production powered by AI. India’s entertainment industry is adopting AI in a big way. The tasks such as storyboarding, scriptwriting and VFX are performed by AI tools. Shiva, a 1989 Telugu movie later released in Hindi in 1990 has been digitally restored using AI tools and modern sound technology.

There could be cost cutting to the extent of 40 per cent in the next two years on account of AI use. The animation companies can save even more. The staff is advised to upskill as AI will be a disruptor.

Laven AI studio, Hyderabad has been set up and is a full-fledged AI studio. Ajay Devgn launched Prismix, an AI-driven production company. Chandigarh-based Intelliflicks is producing AI-generated films. There is Mumbai-based Amazing Indian that aims to produce AI-led films. Indian film industry is more open to AI than the West.

AI adoption facilitates the control of production costs since films are being viewed more online and offline tariffs are under stress. Smartphones too project films. Thus, AI adoption has become a necessity. Besides the content is created faster.

However, AI cannot define creativity. And there should be guardrails as the sector is going under massive overhaul.

ChatGPT has been around for the last three years and has 800 million weekly users, which could cross 1 billion figure before 2025 ends. OpenAI is adding new features to the bot, including even erotic content once age-gating is fully rolled out in December 2025. Silicon Valley’s growth mantra is ‘blitzkrieg’ and its scaling — grow rapidly and experiment on the fly. OpenAI has adopted this strategy to expand user base which is then monetized.

Google has a ChatGPT clone called Gemini, It is hotly chasing ChatGPT. In some technical features, Gemini surpasses ChatGPT. Gemini 3 is inviting attention all over. Still, it continues to remain a distant second. Demis Hassabis, Google’s AI head, is focused on scientific excellence, rather than product engagement. ChatGPT’s personality can be friendly or nerdy. It has announced group chats. The bells and whistles of ChatGPT lure more users. ChatGPT is not merely a digital assistant, but an empathetic companion.

Google retains its position with its powerful search engine, cloud unit and AI chips. It can afford a slower growth of Gemini. OpenAI intends to convert free users into $20-a-month subscribers. It has the pioneer’s advantage. It cannot remain complacent to maintain itself as numero uno.

At the college level, more and more students are opting for artificial intelligence as a subject of specialization. At the University of California, San Diego, 150 students opted for AI major. At the Stanford University of New York at Buffalo, they created a department of AI. The campus AI boom can be attributed to rising use of ChatGPT and high valuations of tech giants.

Social media firms have committed billions of dollars as investment in AI space. These companies train millions on AI. There is interest in developing new AI models. In the last couple of years, dozens of US universities have set up AI departments to meet the rising demand. AI is studied as a major subject or a minor subject. There are interdisciplinary courses such as biology and AI, and healthcare and AI. MIT has introduced a course on AI and decision making. It has become second-largest major at MIT.

In 2024, 1.73 lac students majored in computer science. A decade earlier, this number was 65000 students. This fall, there was a decline reported on account of employment concerns.

It is a very promising development that a startup is making gasoline in a compact machine without drilling or engine upgradation. It is quite a disruptive technology.

This machine captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts into synthetic gasoline. Later carbon is combined with hydrogen which is extracted from water. There the reaction is facilitated by renewable electricity. The output of carbon-hydrogen combination leads to liquid gasoline.

The fuel can be used directly in the vehicles and there is no need to create a charging infrastructure. The gasoline so produced is chemically identical to fossil-based gasoline. Besides it is clean fuel without contamination of sulfur and ethanol. There is no need to re-engineer the vehicle engine.

The machine could be used in a distributive on demand manufacture.

Investors like the decarbonization part.

The model promotes miniaturization and produces carbon-neutral gasoline.

Such fuels are getting tration in Europe, especially in aviation. The machine is built on plug-and- play design. If solar or wood energy is used, it could become an alternative to fossil fuels. And there is no need to upgrade infrastructure.

AI has entered the legal field and there are several legal AI firms. India hosts 954 legal technology firms. OpenAI has a token usage of 10 billion. CaseMine, an Indian law firm has reached this milestone by processing 12 million legal pages. Internationally, there are 141 AI leaders which have crossed this milestone.

AI tools are very relevant to Indian legal context. There is rising adoption of AI within law forms. These companies use generative AI, deep learning and natural language processing.

India has unique challenges — huge case backlogs, low number of judges and an average pendency of 5.5 years for a HC case. Our tech companies can scale globally as English is the official language for the SC and 25 HCs. There is availability of authoritative, legislative texts in English.

Indian AI firms are developed in India and are tuned to Indian law. There are cost efficiencies here. Foreign firms are aligned to the US, the UK and European jurisdictions. The most widely used domestic platform is Manupatra. There are other firms such as Veritas and CMS Indus Law. Jurisphere has been adopted by AI teams of top firms. Lucio, another firm, computes with global leaders. Top tier law firms use multi-tool strategy. Indian AI talent is as good as that of any other place elsewhere.

Amongst international brands, Harvey is popular which works on a global template.